[[[ PART 2 OF]]] *** Two of former Brooklyn DA Hynes' scams with FBI & U.S. Attorneys are being defended in court by current Kings County DA Eric Gonzalez --- those two wrongful Brooklyn prosecutions have striking similarities with the very notable wrongful prosecution of two defendants for the murder of Malcolm X in 1965

 

This installment of the multi-part series about three of the corrupt deals between the NYPD, FBI, the Brooklyn and Manhattan DA's Offices with the U.S. Attorneys for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York,  will focus-in upon on one of the specific currupt and phony cases cases brought by former Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes involving FBI scams to protect the guilty, and to frame an  innocent defendant in the case >>>  People v Joseph Fama ( "The Jusef Hawkins Case" brought by newly elected Brooklyn DA Hynes in Brooklyn Supreme Court as the successor prosecutor to DA Holtzman, whom Hynes had recently defeated) <<< 

As briefly discussed in Part 1 of this series, both that case and another, People v. Ronnie Wright, are presently being strongly litigated in Brooklyn Supreme Court by Brooklyn by DA Eric Gonzalez against the two seperate and unrelated wrongly prosecuted defendants ---  in various stages of their ongoing "actual innocence" proceedings brought by two seperate and unaffiliated legal teams for the defenants Ronnie Wright and Joey Fama

In the Fama-Yusef Hawkins case, the police detectives' focus shifted from Joey Serrano to Joey Fama at a time that coincided with candidate for DA Hynes' primary win over prior DA Holtzman  ---  and at that time the case became a complex consiracy to frame Joey Fama for ulterior motives involving multiple prosecutors' offices, multiple investigative agencies, and even the courts themselves 

The Joey Fama-Yusef Hawkins Case 

In the Joey Fama-Yusef Hawkins case, the real killer of Yusef Hawkins in August of 1989 was a fellow by the name of Joey Serrano.  The initial eyewitnesses in the case identified Yusef Hawkins' killer as somebody named "Joey" to  the detectives working the case in its early stages; and one NYPD detective wrote "Joey" in a DD-5 report of a witness interrogation with all the contact info from that witness. Later on, the same witness and another witness picked out Joey Serrano in a properly conducted line-up.

Was Serrano charged with the murder of Yusef Hawkins?  No !!!  And here is why: NYPD Detective Scarcella & FBI Agent Lindley Del Vecchio intervened on prime suspect Joey Serrano's behalf, because Serrano's father was a mob guy associated with FBI Agent DeVecchio; and more important, a cooperating witness for the Feds that was helping to build cases along with agent DeVecchio's other informants. As part of a deal to protect "Joey" Serrano, newly elected Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes and Detective Scardella simply morphed the real culprit "Joey" Serrano into some other guy named "Joey"  ---  and that other guy named "Joey" turned out to be  >>> JOEY FAMA.

Thirty three years and a couple weeks later Brooklyn DA Gonzalez' ADAs were in  Supreme Court Kings County fighting to block actual innocence proceedings on behalf of Joey Fama, in order to block Fama's lawyer Justin Bonus from introducing the ecidence he had developered about the conspiracy to frame his client over thirty-three years ago.

Early in the Hynes era, and shortly after his office took over the Yusef Hawkins prosecution, things were not going well for the prosecution. In March of 1990, a plea deal with JohnVento one of defendants testifying against Joey Fama blew up, and John Vento went on the run for a while; and one of Yusef Hawkin's family members was saying that  >>>  ".... I placed my trust in [Hynes] and all we got were lies, deceit and trickery...."

For many others, the 1989 murder of Black teenager Yusuf Hawkins reverberates to this day along the avenues and up-and-down the sidestreets of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, where many longtime residents still insist that Special Prosecutor Charles "Joe" Hyness wrongfully prosecuted and pushed through the conviction of  Joey Fama for Second Degree Murder. By now, several of those involved in the case know something not widely reported  ---  but now, not in dispute  —  that a notorious NYPD Detective named Louis Scarcella played an active role in the Special Prosecutor's investigation of the murder of Yusef Hawkins, even though the Hawkins case was outside his bailiwicks in North Brooklyn Homicide. They have let many of their Bensonhurst neighbors know all about it.  Nonetheless, Joey Fama continues to serve his 32-years-to-life sentencefor the Yusef Hawkinhs' killing.

Nonetheless, even many years after Joey Fama's conviction in 1990, the Brooklyn DA Eric Rodriguez is living up to his reputation of being a "company man" for his former boss Charles Hynes.  By now it is a matter of record in the reporting on the Fama case to set aside his wrongful prosecution and conviction that  >>>  the Brooklyn DA’s office initially had denied that the notorious NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella played any role in the Yusef Hawkins-Joey Fama case whatsoever. Twice in early 2016, the DA’s appeals bureau informed the Fama legal team  that  >>>  “no DD-5’s generated by Det. Scarcella were located within the relevant files.”  And furthermore, that there had been “no records located indicating that Det. Scarcella, who was assigned to Brooklyn North Homicide, had any involvement... with a Brooklyn South Homicide case.” 

However, when that matter came up again five years later, in response to Fama’s lawyer's 440 motion (which is seeking a hearing to determine whether Fama's conviction should be overturned based on overwhelming evidence of his innocence), DA Eric Gonzalez' office changed its position on the involvement of Detective Scarcella somewhat >>>  by now claiming that, even though there were  >>>  at least 11  <<<  DD-5’s (detective investigative reports)**** personally signed by Scarcella, the DA Gonzalez team opposing Fama's 440 motion are now insisting that Scarcella only  played a “minor role” in the investigation. 

On the other hand, according to Joey Fama's lawyer Justin Bonus, Scarcella was “intimately involved” in the investigation.  First, he helped steer suspicion away from Joseph Serrano, whom two witnesses had already identified as the gunman (and is six feet tall, a height described by a third witnaess).  Only a few days after those eye-witnesses had clearly  fingered Joey Serrano, Scarcella issued a DD-5 report that a co-assailant named John Vento had told a hearsay witness Christian Mongiello that “he saw Fama shoot the guy.”  However, Mongiello did not say that during other interviews with a different detectives a couple of days later.  Also Vento's father also met with Detective Scarcella to discuss how and why Vento had visited Mongiello’s home “on several occasions.” 

Eventually, Vento testified before the grand jury against Fama, however he did not take the stand at trial to be cross-examined in any way, because of the tortured history of his plea deal with DA Hynes.  Nonetheless, as things shook out, Serrano and Vento received very light sentences for their parts in the Yusef Hawkins murder  --- in spite of an early Hynes' promise to the public and to the Hawkins family that all those involved in Hawkins; murder, would be charged with and punished for felonies. 

Some judicial reporters have said that  >>>  given the fact that every witness against Joey Fam has recanted their earlier statements, saying that they were wongly obtained by the police detectives on the Yusef Hawkins;' murder investigation, and given all of the exonerations obtianed in so many of Scarcella's other cases (now in the dozens), his newly discovered role in the Fama investigations should have immediately opened the door for an innocence hearing on Fama's prosecution and conviction.  Also in the event that Detective Scarcella is made to take the stand pursuant to Fama's 440 motion and during an actual innocence trial, he won’t be able to deploy his routine evasions of lack of recall routine for his key roll in such a high-profile investigation.  

Stop, there's still more.  Roy Lindley DeVecchio was a former FBI agent in charge of managing mob informants and other mob related matters. DeVecchio made his bones workingd for the FBI during the Mafia wars in New York during the 1980s and 1990s, eventually rising to head of the FBI squad responsible for surveillance of the Colombo crime family. He was also responsible for handling Gregory Scarpa, a Colombo capo who had secretly been an FBI informant since the 1960s.  It was that DeVecchio-Scarpa connection that led Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes to put his office's top fixer ADA Michael Vecchione onto a major case against senior FBI Agent Lin DeVecchio.  Speaking about the DeVecchio indictment in March of 2006 that connected DeVecchio to four murders by  feeding information to Scarpa that was used to kill four people  ---  a major paper reported that  >>>  "R. Lindley DeVecchio, 65, was arrested in a case of confidential leaks, payoffs and death' dating back two decades, District Atty. Charles Hynes said...."; along with this from other media sources:  "...  DeVecchio developed a close relationship with Gregory Scarpa Sr., a captain in the Colombo crime family....  This is the most stunning example of official corruption I have ever seen...."  Those reports also indicated that Hynes also specifically said that during the recent war within the mob, DeVecchio took bribes and "counseled Scarpa to protect himself by eliminating imminent threats."

A possible federal connection to the FAMA-Yusef Hawkins  case  >>>  through FBI Agent Lin DeVecchio

Yet despite his stunning success fighting organized crime, DeVecchio was accused of switching sides. That happened when senior FBI Agent DeVecchio was specifically accused by DA Hynes Office off tipping off mobster Gregory Scarpa about which informants were ratting him out.  In any case, the case that Brooklyn DA Hynes had brought against Lin DeVecchio was another of his slap-dash affairs with phony witnesses and all Hynes' other tricks.  The Brooklyn DA's case against Agent DeVecchio collapsed when tape recordings emerged that contradicted testimony by the star witness for the Brooklyn DA, Linda Schiro, Gregory Scarpa's "common law wife"  ---  longtime mistress  ---  and mother of one of Scarpa's children.

Calling Schiro, Scarpa's mistress and common-law wife, a "mercenary and absolutely amoral human being," DeVecchio's attorney Doug Grover accused the district attorney's office of illegal grand jury leaks and of failing to verify Schiro's statements about DeVecchio. According to Grover, "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...."

Thus far this independent Republican blog for Brooklyn and Staten Island's insider source on these matters has thus far only uncovered one specific reference to Lin DeVecchio and the case of Joey Fama  ---  a mention of a communication between Detective Louis Scarcella and FBI Agent Lin DeVecchio in one of the recently disclosed DD-5s filed by Scarcella during his time in the Yusef Hawkins murder investigation. 

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*** Further details about these cases, which resulted from the corrupt deals between the NYPD, FBI, the Brooklyn and Manhattan DA's Offices with the U.S. Attorneys for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York have been posted in an earlier feature post on 9/23/2023; with additional coverage of these cases by this independent Republican blog for Brooklyn and Staten Island during the coming days and weeks.

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**** To put the 11 Scarcella DD-5s in some context, there were nearly 800 DD-5’s created during the investigation of the Yusef Hawkins murder. However,  according to Fama’s attorney Justin Bonus, the office of Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez has not yet turned over around three hundred of those reports  ---  and without all of the DD-5s in the case, nobody can know all of Louis Scarcella's involvement in the case, or even why he was involved in the first place on the Hawkins' case --- and/or the outside influences by other investigative agencies not formally involved in the case,