May 10, 1999
It's Not Life, But Close
Colombo mobster Gregory Scarpa Jr. was slammed last week with a 40 year sentence for racketeering and other crimes by a Brooklyn Federal Judge who rejected his plea for leniency and downplayed his spying on a known terrorist for the FBI.
Judge Reena Raggi dismissed his year of spying against World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef while they were prison mates as insignificant at best and more likely "part of a scam."
At his trial, Scarpa testified that he alerted the FBI of plots to kill a judge and a prosecutor. He also described how he used a tiny two-inch spy camera to photograph bomb formulas that Yousef slipped through the cracks in the wall of their cells.
Scarpa, 47, was acquitted of five murders which each carried a life sentence, but convicted of racketeering and separate counts of loansharking, bookmaking and tax fraud. He admitted at trial that he was inducted into the Mafia, but claimed the crimes in his six-count indictment were all committed by his father, Greg Sr., a Colombo capo and a top-echelon FBI informant for 30 years.
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