Ex-FBI Agent Chooses Bench Trial

A former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation waived his right to a jury trial on murder charges yesterday, instead putting his case in the hands of a judge whom the F.B.I. once investigated when he was a student. The former agent, Roy Lindley DeVecchio, has been charged with helping a prized informer from an organized crime family commit four murders in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

As jury selection was set to begin yesterday, lawyers for Mr. DeVecchio asked for a bench trial before the judge overseeing the case, Justice Gustin L. Reichbach of State Supreme Court. Justice Reichbach warned the lawyers that he had been investigated by the F.B.I. while a student at Columbia University, where he organized student protests in the 1960s. Mr. DeVecchio was undeterred. The trial was set to begin on Oct. 15.