Tommy McLaughlin and the Colombo Family

In the book The Mafia Hitman's Daughter there is one chapter that gets lost in all the fascinating details of the inner workings of Colombo Capo Greg Scarpa’s life. This was the chapter when Greg’s daughter Linda marries Thomas McLaughlin aka Tommy, who has been sent away for dealing drugs.  

Tommy was a kid that who was known as a tough street guy.  He was quick tempered and had a cousin who was on the rise in the Colombo family.  Tommy instead decided to go with Greg Scarpa’s crew.  He used to run messages and collect debts, but he was very much part of the crew.  He was always at the Scarpa home enjoying a meal or just watching TV.

When the Colombo war broke out and Vic and Wild Bill's men tried to murder Scarpa in front of his house, Tommy was the first one there with a 38 in his belt.  

Tommy was a man a living on borrowed time when the war started.  He had been dealing ounce quantities of cocaine all over Brooklyn.  The cops were after him and had a wiretap on his phone in which they had him talking about selling some ounces to and undercover buyer.

They were set to arrest him but he went underground during the war.  Tommy was shot while driving in his car in Bensonhurst.  He escaped with another guy but a 16 year old was wounded in the shooting.  Tommy was only grazed in the back by a bullet.

He was picked up one night in Dyker Heights and he ended up pleading out to one count of cocaine sales and tax evasion.  The cops tried everything to get him to flip but he was no rat.  

He ended up marrying Linda Scarpa while he was locked up.  He told her that he was worried about something he did a long time ago.  She told him to cooperate.  He told her no way would he become a rat.

14 years is a long time to be off the street and things change.  Tommy Gioeli who was Tommy’s cousin became the Colombo street boss and he carried out some high profile hits.

The murder of Colombo underboss Wild Bill Cutolo and a policeman Ralph Dol’s where some of them. One of Geoli’s guy’s capo Dino Calabro flipped and implicated Tommy in the murder of Frank (Chestnut) Marasa.  So when Tommy finished his 14 year sentence had gotten remarried to another women and had a child he was looking at going back again.  

He did his time and he was looking forward to enjoying the perks of being connected to the administration.  The FBI had other plans so they convinced him to wear a wire.  

People can say what they want about Tommy.  The guy did his time and now was getting hung out to dry by a high ranking member.  Tommy did what was right for him and his family.

He took down Big Anthony Russo who in turn flipped.  He also testified about how his cousin ordered the Marasa murder.  Tommy drove the car that night and later met with his cousin and Dino at a diner.

That life is over with so many guys flipped and still free.  The Hitman’s Daughter is a great look back at how that life used to be.  Read it for an inside look into a Mafia family.

The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter

If you google the name Gregory Scarpa, up will pop words such as his nickname, “the Grim Reaper,” “Mafia capo,” and “FBI informant.”

Greg was also a husband and father.  

I recently read the new book, “The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter,” written by  Greg's daughter Linda.

I did not know Greg, who was a capo in the Colombo Family.  I did, however, know a lot of people in the book.  I knew some of his intended victims and those that tried to make him a victim.  

The book is a well written look inside a mafia leader’s family life.  Greg comes off as charming in beginning.  It sucks you into the life so you are almost living it with Linda and her mother, Big Linda.  This is a not a book that glamorizes the life, but a look at the truth.

As you read along, you begin to accept things as okay even when you know they are not - which is exactly how it happens in the life.  I'll give you a few examples.  

When someone goes into the armed forces they go away to bootcamp.  They go through physical stress as well as emotional stress.  Everyone around them is dressed the same and going through the same experience.  They use the same lingo for common things, which people outside that life don't use.  Everything about that life is becomes normal to them, but if you were to do the same things for a day you would find it grueling.  The same with going into law enforcement or the fire department. Life in service (that is not normal to anyone outside of service) becomes normal and accepted when you are a part of it.

Greg Scarpa’s wife Big Linda grew up in Brooklyn and the people she saw often were involved in the mafia.

Today it is easy to forget that the Italians and Jews were once the immigrants who lived in the ghetto.  They were blue collar and many worked hard to assimilate into American society.  They kept their heritage but became Americans.  They still lived in neighborhoods like Bensonhurst, Brooklyn but they worked their way up to become middle class.  I knew some old Italian mafia guys and they still talked about how they were spit on as kids.  A couple of them boxed and they took Irish names so they could get fights, since Italians were not seen as fighters.  

In 1962 at Flamingo Lounge at 72nd St. and 13th Ave in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Big Linda met a 35 year old Greg Scarpa.  It was the glory days of the American mafia and these guys ruled the city with an iron fist.  She was already dazzled by these men in power, but Greg was a different story.  He was handsome and very self confident, but he was very nice. He did everything for her and she was willing to overlook the small things like gambling and robbery.  Why not - he was a good man to her.  When she found out he murdered people it was the same, because she did not see the devastation up close.

Big Linda was also a witness to Greg's double life as an FBI informant.  This is the part of the book that is fascinating. When you read it you will be shocked at how far the government is willing to go in order to put away certain people.  

I was an FBI informant, and guess what, so are many guys still on the street.  The founder of the modern mafia, Lucky Luciano, was an informant.  It gives you an edge to others on the street. You don't have to worry about the law, just those in the street.  

Greg loved the life and he never intended to leave it.  He used the FBI for money and most importantly, intel on his enemies or other law enforcement agencies.  I've known a lot of informants over the years.  I knew many who did just what I did and got out.  I knew others that used the FBI to continue their crime spree and even commit murder.  One man I knew flooded Southern California with cocaine from the Medellin Cartel and murder whoever displeased him.  He was a long time FBI informant that never should have been.  The DEA warned the FBI not to use him because he was still a top cocaine supplier and a murderer.  They used him anyway, and he died of old age in his bed.

The book gives names and times Greg met with the FBI and intel agents gave him.  The agents broke the rules and became friends with Greg.  They vacationed with him and ate meals.  How they did not get put away is beyond me.  I guess this is why today the agents work in pairs and when important papers have to be signed a fresh agent must witness it.

The book is not a Mafia tell all that names names and specific crimes, but it is a great look into the world.  I know guys who were on the hit Linda describes in the book when the Wild Bill faction of the Colombo family tried to get him.  I've been told first hand by a shooter what went down and the version in the book is right on.  

Linda talks about going to Florida with guys from her father's crew when they were on vacation.  The guys from the crew were really going to carry out a murder.  The guy she named was Joe Peraino.  Joe Peraino and his brother Tony owned a porn company Arrow Film and Video.  They had many, but Arrow was the most famous.  Tony’s son Butch produced Deepthroat which became a moneymaker beyond anything the Mafia ever did in porn.  Tony, who I knew as Big Tony, was a made Colombo and so was his brother Joe.  They came from a line of mafia bosses.  They had interests in the garment center but after Deepthroat took off, the money became an issue.  

The Colombos sided with Big Tony.  A hit team that included Tommy Shots Gioeli chased down Joe and his son in Brooklyn.  They killed Joe’s son and a nun, but Joe lived out his life in a wheelchair in Florida.

The book is accurate and a great read, pick it up today if you’d like an inside peak into the life.

Greg Scarpa Jr. and the Homegrown Terrorist

February 26, 1993 was the date when Muslim terrorists drove a truck bomb weighing 1300lbs into the North Tower garage of the World Trade Center. It opened a 98 foot hole going down 4 levels and cut the power to the WTC.  This was the first strike on American soil by Al Qaeda.  The bomb maker Ramzi Yousef  was the nephew of  Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Ali Fadden who would be the mastermind behind 9-11.  Ramzi would be caught in the Philippines when his apartment caught on fire while making bombs to blow up planes in the air.

Ramzi was incarcerated while awaiting trial in 1996 in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC). One of his fellow inmates was Greg Scarpa Jr., a Colombo crime family member.  Scarpa Jr made a deal with prosecutors and the FBI to help gather information from Ramzi and his fellow terrorists.  He convinced them that the Mafia was rooting for the terrorists.

On July 17, 1996 Ramzi asked to use Scarpa Jr.’s smuggled cellphone.  Ramzi had no idea it was part of the FBI sting and he called Khalid and they spoke about TWA 800 that had been destroyed.  In May, Scarpa Jr had told the FBI that Ramzi wanted to blow up planes to show they were serious.  The FBI and the US Attorney would later claim the Scarpa Jr. had pulled a scam and hoax on them and his information was worthless.

They convicted Scarpa Jr. on racketeering charges and he was given 40 years at Supermax in Florence, Colorado.  Scarpa Jr. was given a very long sentence and sent to Supermax which is strange because bosses like John Gotti did not even go there.  Vinny Basciano, who tried to have a prosecutor murdered, was sent there but he has been downgraded.

Once in Supermax, Scarpa Jr. was locked down for all but about 90 minutes a day.  It was during this time that he met Terry Nichols, who along with Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City Federal Building on April 19, 1995 using a 4800 pound bomb inside a rental truck.  It killed 168 people and injured 600 more.

The US government had convicted Timothy McVeigh of being the mastermind and the one who detonated the bomb.  This, despite the fact they found a leg that did not belong to anyone in the building rubble after the blast.  They convicted Terry Nichols as a conspirator and one man testified against them.  Michael Fortier along with his wife had knowledge beforehand that they were planning the bombing.  

Scarpa Jr. gained Terry Nichols’ trust, and he ended up giving Scarpa Jr. the location of some explosives.  It was in Nichols’ old home in Herington, Kansas, and he told him it might be retrieved and used to mark the tenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City blast in 2005.

He gave Scarpa written directions in a handwritten note, which can be seen online.  Scarpa went to the FBI and they flew out a polygraph expert, who concluded he was lying.  The FBI was sure the house was clean because they had searched it a number of times.

Scarpa contacted his own investigator who contacted members of Congress who went to the FBI.  The FBI finally got around to searching the old home and they found explosives just like Scarpa had told them.  They found Nitromethane and Kine-Stik wrapped just like Scarpa had told them.  They would not reduce his sentence and they claimed they had developed the information on the explosives from another source.  

This week, a Federal Judge ruled in Scarpa Jr.’s favor, and reduced his sentence by 10 years.  It may not help, because Scarpa Jr. is suffering from cancer. Buried in the transcripts, the Judge says, “It was my view and remains my view that Lin DeVecchio provided information to Scarpa Sr. that got people killed.”  The Judge is referring to the former FBI Agent DeVecchio, who was Greg Scarpa Sr.’s handler while he was murdering people on information he claimed he got from the FBI.

This all makes you wonder if the evidence Scarpa Jr. got on the Oklahoma Bombing was all true.   He was told they had help the Government did not know about.