Mob Witness Takes Stand In Trial Against FBI Agent

Friday, November 9th 2007, 7:16 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) _ The mob moll whose conflicting stories sank a corruption case against a former FBI agent said her testimony against him was true, but the tale she told two reporters was not.

Linda Schiro told WABC-TV in an interview Thursday that she was ``in shock'' after prosecutors said she might face perjury charges. Retired Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder was appointed special prosecutor to examine whether Schiro should be charged.

The case against ex-agent Lindley DeVecchio fell apart last week after Schiro's testimony was undermined by a taped interview she had done with two reporters a decade ago.

DeVecchio had been accused of conspiring in a mob murder spree by feeding confidential information to mafia informant Gregory Scarpa. Schiro, the late Scarpa's girlfriend, was prosecutors' key witness. But in the taped interview, she implicated DeVecchio in only one murder _ not the four about which she testified under oath.

After the tapes surfaced, the murder charges against DeVecchio were dropped Nov. 1. He cannot be tried again because of the double jeopardy rule.

``I told, in court, the truth,'' Schiro said. She said she had lied to the writers to make their planned book ``exciting, like they wanted it.''

Schiro also said prosecutors knew she had fibbed to the writers.

Representatives for the Brooklyn District Attorney's office did not immediately return a telephone message left after-hours Thursday night.

DeVecchio questioned the credibility of Schiro's claims. ``How can you believe her? She's changed her story so many times,'' he said outside his home in Sarasota, Fla.