Schiro says DA's office betrayed her

Linda Schiro, the key witness in the recently abandoned case against former FBI supervisor Roy Lindley DeVecchio, feels betrayed and tossed aside by the Kings County District Attorney's Office, according to an interview with Sarah Wallace of WABC-TV.

Schiro's testimony in the DeVecchio trial connected the former FBI supervisor with four gangland killings. A reporter subsequently came forward with details of a Schiro interview that contradicted her testimony. Kings County prosecutors quickly dropped the case against DeVecchio and stated that Schiro (left) could face perjury charges.

In Schiro's interview with Wallace, she insisted that her court testimony was accurate and that the prosecutors were earlier aware of the apparently conflicting interview. She complained about how the DA's office has treated her. "I told the truth... I'm hurting because like I said, I can't believe what they did. I really can't."

During the WABC interview, Schiro recalled the FBI assistance provided by her longtime mobster boyfriend Gregory Scarpa. In 1964, Scarpa persuaded members of the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan to provide information on the murders of three missing civil rights workers. For many years, Scarpa secretly cooperated with the FBI.

DeLuca panel seeks FBI tapes

A Connecticut Senate subcommittee looking into allegations of impropriety against State Senator Louis DeLuca voted this week to seek subpoena power to obtain FBI tapes now in DeLuca's possession, according to a story by Christopher Keating of the Hartford Courant.

The subcommittee decided that DeLuca (right) "brought dishonor on his office and the institution of the state Senate" but refused to make a recommendation to the full Senate until it could listen to the full tapes of DeLuca's Sept 5 and Sept 7, 2006, conversations with an FBI agent posing as an associate of Danbury-area trash hauler James Galante. Excerpts from the tapes were transcribed into an arrest warrant affidavit. The U.S. Attorneys office gave copies of the full tapes to DeLuca's attorney. The state senator pleaded guilty in June to a misdemeanor charge of conspiring with Galante to threaten DeLuca's granddaughter's husband. (See related story.)

One of the excerpts suggests that DeLuca would be willing to do favors in the legislature for Galante. DeLuca's attorney has pointed out that other statements on the tapes portray DeLuca in a more favorable light. The tapes reportedly show that DeLuca immediately turned down an offered bribe from the undercover agent. However, DeLuca stated last month that he would not turn over copies of the tapes.

"The recordings are not publicly available information and will not be disclosed," he said.

Galante has been indicted in connection with a property rights racket in the western Connecticut waste hauling industry. Federal prosecutors say he supervised a non-competitive affiliation on hauling companies that sent regular payments to a New York Mafia family. Galante says he is innocent of the charges.

The six-member subcommittee investigating DeLuca can recommend expulsion, censure, reprimand or no action.