Posted on 10/30/2007 7:29:50 AM PDT by SmithL
NEW YORK -- The FBI used underworld ties to solve the 1964 disappearance of three civil rights volunteers in Mississippi, a gangster's ex-girlfriend testified Monday, becoming the first witness to repeat in open court a story that's been underworld lore for years.
Linda Schiro said that her boyfriend, Mafia tough guy Gregory Scarpa Sr., was recruited by the FBI to help find the volunteers' bodies. She said Scarpa later told her he put a gun in a Ku Klux Klansman's mouth and forced him to reveal the location of the victims.
The FBI has never acknowledged that Scarpa, nicknamed "The Grim Reaper," was involved in the case. The bureau did not immediately return a call for comment Monday.
Schiro took the stand as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of former FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, who is charged in state court with four counts of murder in what authorities have called one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history.
Prosecutors say Scarpa plied DeVecchio with cash, liquor and prostitutes in exchange for confidential information on suspected rats and rivals in the late 1980s and early '90s. Scarpa died behind bars in 1994.
The notion that Scarpa strong-armed a Klansman into giving up information on one of the most notorious crimes of the civil rights era has been talked about in mob circles for years.
The New York Daily News in 1994 reported that the New York mobster terrorized an appliance salesman and Klansman already suspected in the case.
Schiro testified Monday that she and Scarpa traveled to Mississippi in 1964 after he was recruited by the FBI. She said they walked into the hotel where the FBI had gathered during the investigation, and the gangster winked at agents. She said an agent later showed up in their room and handed Scarpa a gun.
She said Scarpa helped find the volunteers' bodies by going up to the Klansman, "putting a gun in the guy's mouth and threatening him." She said an agent later returned to the room, gave Scarpa a wad of cash, and took back the firearm.
Schiro's remarks about the Mississippi episode were only a brief part of her full day of testimony.
Schiro, 62, started dating Scarpa at age 17 after meeting him in a bar. She said she had been around mobsters most of her life, so his boasts that he had been involved in 20 gangland murders didn't frighten her.
"I was impressed," she said.
She said she was more surprised when the Colombo crime family captain told her about his ties to the FBI. "I said, 'What do you mean, you're a rat?'" she recalled. "And he said, 'No, I just work for them.'"
DeVecchio became the informant's "handler" in 1978, and Schiro said she was allowed to sit in on weekly meetings at the couple's apartment. She said that when Scarpa offered stolen jewelry to the agent, he took it and put it in his pocket.
Schiro testified that in the fall of 1984 she overheard DeVecchio warn Scarpa that the girlfriend of another Colombo capo was a potential "rat."
"You know you have to take care of this?" DeVecchio said, according to Schiro.
"I'll take care of it," Scarpa said.
The girlfriend was gunned down at a mob social club a few days later.
Defense attorneys have sought to portray Schiro -- who testified that prosecutors were paying her $2,200 a month for living expenses -- as an opportunist who framed DeVecchio at the behest of overzealous prosecutors.
They have also accused her trying to improve her chances for a tell-all book deal about Scarpa.
J. Edgar, 'Grim Reaper' -- and vaunted rights case
The mob connection supposedly happened during the search for civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, who were beaten and shot by Klansmen and buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Miss. The case was dramatized in the movie "Mississippi Burning."
Investigators struggled for answers in the early days of the case, stymied by stonewalling Klan members. In 1994, the New York Daily News, citing federal law enforcement officials, reported that a frustrated J. Edgar Hoover turned to Gregory ''The Grim Reaper'' Scarpa Sr. to extract information.
The killings galvanized the struggle for equality in the South and helped bring about the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Seven people were convicted at the time, but none served more than six years.
Mississippi later reopened the case, winning a manslaughter conviction against former Klansmen and part-time preacher Edgar Ray Killen two years ago. He is serving a 60-year prison sentence.
In the latter years the Truth shall be shouted from the housetops.
Does this open the doors for appeals by Killian?
“put a gun in the mouth of a Klu Klux Klansman”. Who says torture doesn’t work?
Apparently organized crime was a potent ally in the pursuit of “civil rights” in this country. They were using methods that would NEVER be authorized for a legitimate law enforcement agency (not that these methods are never used, we just don’t hear much about it until some politician wants to score points).
But by extension, that would make the imposing of “civil rights” a criminal activity by ordinary standards. That is, it would not have become the law of the land, and the ideal, without resorting to some underhanded and cut-throat tactics to grease the way for the desired objective.
That the objective has only been partly achieved, is now being blamed, not on the inadequacy of the goal, but on the persistent efforts to sabotage the process. The saboteurs have been wrongly identified, which makes progress even more difficult, as enormous effort is expended chasing the wrong solution, while the problems not addressed keep snowballing.
This wasn’t about “civil rights”, it was about solving a murder.
_____________
Sorry, if it does not involve panties over their head, it’s not torture.
/s
Or better yet, keeping the FBI from good press.
(((((((Scratching head.)))))))))))
Equal rights has been the law of the land since the 1860s but those laws were being systematically violated by one group gangster thugs (the KKK) who at least in this instance were bested by another even tougher gangster leading to arrests in this particular crime in Mississippi.
Defiantly not the most elegant or even legal solution to crime fighting, but it does nothing that I can see to make 'Civil Rights' illegitimate or enforcing the Constitutional guarantee of civil rights for all citizens a criminal activity.
I read more details about this in a book by Peter Lance[?]
The FBI kidnapped subjects for Scarpo to torture.
Well, thank goodness the guy didn't waterboard him.
-for another example, maybe the cops should "solve" murders by having the Crips put a piece in the mouth of the most available Blood, getting a confession and then using it in court?---(sarc)
Which Klansman was it, Byrd?
I never endorsed the tactic, I was just pointing out that this particular case had nothing to do with the Civil Rights movement. Strawman arguments just don’t wash.
btt
The case of three missing civil rights workers had nothing to do with the civil rights movement?
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