By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma
In a stunning revelation quietly received this week by the New York press corps, Gang Land News journalist Jerry Capeci broke a monster story: he revealed after two decades that a prolific mafia witness alleges he was coerced into sex with an FBI special agent who helped handle him while he was wearing a wire and providing information against the likes of Vincent “the Chin” Gigante, Peter Gotti, and dozens of other alleged mobsters.
Michael “Cookie” D’Urso provided information to convict “more than 70” New York Mafia figures, but he harbored a dark secret, according to Capeci’s column and a forthcoming book by retired FBI agent Mike Campi.
During his three most active years as an informant, from mid-1998 to early 2001, while making thousands of recordings against mobsters from his own Genovese crime family and others, D’Urso was allegedly engaged in a coercive sexual relationship with Special Agent Joy Adam.
Adam was not only one of D’Urso’s handlers, but was also married to a supervisor on the FBI’s Genovese squad, according to Capeci and Campi. When D’Urso reported the relationship to Campi, another of his handlers, years later after Campi had retired, Campi tried to have the FBI investigate.
But they failed to do so. Instead, the agency censored Campi’s book.
Gangland News explains:
In War Against the Mafia, a book scheduled for publication in December, former FBI agent Mike Campi wrote that he learned years after he retired in 2007 about D’Urso’s allegations that “shocked me to the very core.” But to his “surprise and disappointment,” he wrote, the FBI showed no desire to pursue the allegations and prosecute her. And on orders from FBI censors in Washington, Campi had to omit a crucial detail from his manuscript — the name of the agent.
But Capeci knew Adam’s name as early as 2010, when D’Urso came to him with the story at a restaurant near the Brooklyn federal court. D’Urso swore Capeci to silence unless something should happen to him, in which case Capeci was permitted to come forward with the facts.
“When D’Urso told me he was forced to have sex with agent Adam for years,” Capeci writes, “he stated that when his five years probation ended in March of 2012, he would think about letting me write that ‘big story.’ That day never came. D’Urso declined to discuss the matter now, or comment about Campi’s book. But he released me from my oath of secrecy, now that Campi has written about it.” Capeci tried to reach Adam, her husband, and the FBI but they all declined to respond.
The (paid) Gang Land News column airs the full tale of D’Urso’s relationship with Adam, but suffice to say it starts with a meal and drinks at a hotel near Newark Airport at which Adam tells D’Urso: “Hey, you wanna get laid tonight? I’ve been listening to your conversations for years and I’ve grown attracted to you.” From there, it moves on to a lot of sex and a lot of fear: D’Urso told Capeci he “felt trapped by Adam, fearful that she would upend his deal with the feds — or worse.”
D’Urso’s allegations against Adam raise an important question for sex crimes defense lawyers, the FBI, and state and federal prosecutors who relied on D’Urso’s testimony in court and to secure guilty pleas: if an FBI agent can coerce you into betraying your wife and engaging in unwanted sex, can she coerce you into providing false information about crimes?
With Capeci’s revelations, the time has come for the government to listen to D’Urso and Campi. The allegations of a grotesque abuse of power within the FBI ranks should be fully investigated. Adam’s targets are entitled to know her witness’s motives for testifying. When the FBI allows one of its agents to sexually exploit a witness, the Constitution requires the government to report that to targets of the agent and the witness so that the witness’s real reasons for testifying can be explored in court.
The scandal the FBI failed to investigate when its own agent, Mike Campi, revealed it could now upend any number of mob convictions.
Full Disclosure: ZMO Law PLLC proudly represents Jerry Capeci and Gang Land News on First Amendment matters that arise from time to time.