'The Nightmare Is Over': Freed FBI Agent Slams Prosecutors

Nov. 1, 2007 — -- "After almost two years, this nightmare is over."

With that sentence, former FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio expressed his relief after prosecutors dropped murder charges against him in his trial this morning.

The Brooklyn district attorney's case against DeVecchio, who was accused of tipping off mobster Gregory Scarpa about who was ratting him out, collapsed when tape recordings emerged that contradicted testimony by the star witness for the prosecution.

"It has consumed me emotionally, drained me financially, and it has tested my faith in the system I spent 30 years of my life defending," said DeVecchio during a press conference in his lawyer's office this afternoon.

DeVecchio thanked his family for their emotional support and retired FBI agents who helped fund his legal defense.

"I will never forgive the Brooklyn DA," said DeVecchio. "My question is: Where do I go to get my reputation back?"

DeVecchio said he is looking forward to driving back to his Florida home, taking his Harley Davidson out for a long ride and working out at the gym. Courtroom observers speculated that DeVecchio is working on a book about his experiences.

DeVecchio's lawyer, who started to poke holes in star witness Linda Schiro's testimony when the 1997 tape recordings she made with reporters Tom Robbins and Jerry Capeci were revealed Tuesday afternoon, also attacked the prosecutors.

Calling Schiro, Scarpa's mistress and common-law wife, a "mercenary and absolutely amoral human being," attorney Doug Grover accused the district attorney's office of illegal grand jury leaks and of failing to verify Schiro's statements. "This investigation and prosecution was a model of what a responsible prosecutor should not do. … You have to wonder who is minding the store in the county of Kings."

The District Attorney's office declined to comment.

The ruling comes one day after bombshell recordings were introduced that captured the state's star witness apparently talking out of both sides of her mouth.

In a stunning development to a case that made headlines and influenced plot lines on "The Sopranos," Assistant District Attorney Michael Vecchione stood up in Brooklyn Supreme Court this morning and said, "Had we been provided these tapes much earlier in the process, I dare say we wouldn't have been here."

As DeVecchio stood in the courthouse well, courtroom spectators, including his wife and several former FBI colleagues applauded and expressed their joy, according to courtroom witnesses.

The high-profile courtroom drama was rocked Wednesday morning when it was revealed that star witness Linda Schiro, in 1997 interviews with two reporters, contradicted testimony she gave this week, claiming that DeVecchio had a hand in the homicides. Judge Gustin Reichbach, who is presiding over this bench trial, informed Schiro that she may have committed perjury and should get a lawyer.

Lawyers for the Brooklyn District Attorney's office and the defense subpoenaed Village Voice writer Tom Robbins and mob reporter Jerry Capeci Tuesday night after Robbins published a story describing the decade-old interviews. According to those stories, Schiro told the reporters that DeVecchio only had a role in one of the four murders.

The revelation shocked spectators in Brooklyn Supreme Court who had been captivated by Schiro's colorful stories about her life in the mob, including vivid accounts of DeVecchio's sitdowns with Greg Scarpa Sr., at which he supplied the gangster information on which mobsters were ratting him out and who should be killed.

"Lin DeVecchio may be guilty, or may be innocent. But one thing is clear: What Linda Schiro is saying on the witness stand now is not how she told the story 10 years ago concerning three of the four murder counts now at issue," wrote Robbins in Tuesday's story in the Village Voice.

According to Robbins, Schiro claimed that DeVecchio had nothing to do with the murders of Joe "Joe Brewster" DeDomenico, Larry Lampasi and Mary Bari. During testimony in court on Monday, she tied DeVecchio to all of those murders.

She also claimed that DeVecchio tipped off Scarpa that her son Joey's best friend, Patrick Porco, was a rat. Robbins writes that Schiro told them a similar story in 1997, "Lin called, he said the kid was going to tell the detectives what happened," Schiro told the reporters.

When the reporters spoke to Schiro as part of their research for a potential book, they agreed to several ground rules, including a promise that they would not cooperate with any law enforcement inquiries. Now, all these years later, Schiro is the one who is cooperating with law.

And her testimony is a crucial part of the prosecution's argument. "Not a single witness, prior to Schiro, was able to put the former agent in any of the four murders for which he was indicted more than a year ago," wrote Robbins.

On Tuesday, defense lawyer Doug Grover began to poke holes in Schiro's testimony, demonstrating several crucial contradictions with a 1998 affidavit she signed. On cross-examination, Schiro stuttered, "I'm not good at timelines," when an exasperated Grover highlighted her difficulty remembering dates and conversations.

Grover says he wasn't surprised to hear what's on the tapes. "I was surprised at the magnitude and significance of the disparities," he told ABCNEWS.com. "This is a complete frame-job. This guy was framed. It's like reality follows fiction," he said, comparing Schiro to Jack Nicholson's character in "A Few Good Men."