Louie Eppolito had a story to tell. And, more importantly, one to sell.
The decorated ex-New York police detective, who also happened to be the son of a mobster, was living in Las Vegas and trying to peddle doomed screenplays with titles like "Murder In Youngstown." Eppolito was looking for an investor in his latest project and he was unconcerned about the source of the cash.
"If you said to me, `Lou, I wanna introduce you to Jack Smith, he wants to invest in this film,' (and) he says, `$75,000 comes in a (expletive) shoe box,' that's fine with me," Eppolito said during a surreptitiously taped conversation with a federal informant. "I don't care. I've had people give me money before."
It sounds like movie dialogue, maybe something out of "Get Shorty (Two-Disc Special Edition)." No surprise the trial of so-called "Mafia Cops" Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, heading into its third week, has featured plenty of theatrics.
The courtroom histrionics occasionally threaten to overshadow one of the most serious prosecutions in city history: a pair of top-echelon NYPD detectives accused of using their prized gold shields to kill eight people at the behest of a brutal mob underboss, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Prosecutors allege that Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were partners in crime from 1979 to last year, when they were arrested in Las Vegas. They remain free on $5 million bail.
The first day of testimony was punctuated with a screaming match between turncoat mobster Alphonse "Little Al" D'Arco and defense attorney Bruce Cutler, who made his reputation defending the late Gambino family boss John Gotti.
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," snapped the grandfatherly D'Arco, 73, his Brooklyn accent unaltered by 15 years in witness protection. "You're not making any sense to me."
Cutler, his deep voice rising, tried to ask another question: "Wouldn't you agree with me …"
"I wouldn't agree with you on anything!" shouted D'Arco, who was threatened with contempt by U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein. That was before the one-time Luchese boss ripped into Cutler as a loudmouth and a cheapskate. The judge showed little more tolerance for Cutler, cutting off his cross-examination for shouting at D'Arco.
The defendants themselves are a mismatched pair: the portly Eppolito, whose reputation was made as a street cop, comes to court in an ill-fitting sports coat. Caracappa so thin he was known among fellow cops as "The Stick" is fastidious in appearance, right down to his neatly trimmed mustache.
The prosecution has already called its key witness, confessed drug dealer Burton Kaplan, who spent four days testifying about the two detectives' brutal work on behalf of Luchese underboss Casso. Kaplan implicated the pair in a dozen homicides.
Cross-examination of another prosecution witness, crooked accountant Steven Corso, focused on his theft of $5.3 million from an ex-employer to finance a life of what he called "girlfriends, jewelry and going out." It was Corso who recorded the conversations with Eppolito about film financing. The ex-detective, playing up his mob pedigree, sprinkled the conversation with mob names like "Jimmy the Buffalo" and the late crime boss Joe Bonanno.
There was one witness whose testimony tugged on heartstrings while going to the heart of the case: Pauline Pipitone, describing how her youngest son, 26-year-old Nicholas Guido, had come home for Christmas dinner in 1986.
It was Guido's misfortune to share his name with a mobster involved in a botched hit on Casso. When the underboss wanted revenge, prosecutors said, he turned to the two detectives who provided an address for the wrong Nicholas Guido.
The innocent man was showing off his new car when he was shot by mob hit men. Pipitone was inside washing dishes.
"I ran over to the car," she testified. "He was sitting up at the wheel. I went to touch his hand, and he must have just died. His fingertips were cold."
Thanks to Larry McShane
Showing posts with label Stephen Caracappa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen Caracappa. Show all posts
Monday, March 27, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Mama Gets Her shot at 'Mob cops'
Friends of ours: Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Lucchese Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Twenty years after Jimmy Hydell disappeared on a rainy Saturday, his mother will get her chance at revenge against the men she believes delivered him to his death - the so-called Mafia cops. Betty Hydell is set to take the stand this week to testify that Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were looking for her son the day he disappeared.
Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, have been charged with kidnapping Jimmy Hydell and handing him over to gangster Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso. The two ex-NYPD detectives are on trial in Brooklyn Federal Court on charges they killed and committed other crimes while secretly working for the mob.
Casso allegedly tortured Hydell, a wanna-be wiseguy, for hours, then fatally shot him after getting him to reveal the name of cohorts who had attempted to kill the Luchese capo, authorities contend.
Testimony last week by Burton Kaplan, a key government witness, has infuriated Betty Hydell further, her daughter told the Daily News.
Kaplan told jurors Jimmy Hydell knew he was going to die and begged Casso to "throw him in the street" so his mom could collect insurance. Kaplan said Casso promised he would, but Hydell's body was never found. "My mother was very upset about this," said Liz Hydell. "She's ready to come to court."
Documents obtained by the Daily News show Betty Hydell first contacted authorities about the two cops she believed were involved in her son's death seven years before the duo was arrested.
Betty Hydell, according to those papers, is expected to describe how, soon after Jimmy left the house on Oct. 18, 1986, her other son, Frank, returned to say he'd been followed by two men in a light blue sedan. He was driving Jimmy's car.
Hydell got in her car and found the sedan parked near her house. She says she pulled up alongside and asked the men who they were. The driver flashed a badge and she remembers saying, "You should let people know what you're doing."
Some time later, an NYPD detective showed up with Jimmy's clothes and a key ring. She didn't recognize the keys, but something on the ring was his. She kept the clothes for years.
At the time, she did not know the identity of the two cops and told no one of her suspicions. She feared retaliation against her Frank Hydell, who had his own problems with the law.
In April 1998, Frank was gunned down outside a Staten Island strip club. Betty Hydell claims she then told law enforcement officials her belief that two cops had kidnapped her son.
By then, she said she could identify them - claiming some years earlier that she saw Eppolito plugging his 1992 book, "Mafia Cop
," on a talk show and recognized him as the driver of the car she'd seen the day Jimmy went away.
Thanks to Greg B. Smith
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Twenty years after Jimmy Hydell disappeared on a rainy Saturday, his mother will get her chance at revenge against the men she believes delivered him to his death - the so-called Mafia cops. Betty Hydell is set to take the stand this week to testify that Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were looking for her son the day he disappeared.
Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, have been charged with kidnapping Jimmy Hydell and handing him over to gangster Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso. The two ex-NYPD detectives are on trial in Brooklyn Federal Court on charges they killed and committed other crimes while secretly working for the mob.
Casso allegedly tortured Hydell, a wanna-be wiseguy, for hours, then fatally shot him after getting him to reveal the name of cohorts who had attempted to kill the Luchese capo, authorities contend.
Testimony last week by Burton Kaplan, a key government witness, has infuriated Betty Hydell further, her daughter told the Daily News.
Kaplan told jurors Jimmy Hydell knew he was going to die and begged Casso to "throw him in the street" so his mom could collect insurance. Kaplan said Casso promised he would, but Hydell's body was never found. "My mother was very upset about this," said Liz Hydell. "She's ready to come to court."
Documents obtained by the Daily News show Betty Hydell first contacted authorities about the two cops she believed were involved in her son's death seven years before the duo was arrested.
Betty Hydell, according to those papers, is expected to describe how, soon after Jimmy left the house on Oct. 18, 1986, her other son, Frank, returned to say he'd been followed by two men in a light blue sedan. He was driving Jimmy's car.
Hydell got in her car and found the sedan parked near her house. She says she pulled up alongside and asked the men who they were. The driver flashed a badge and she remembers saying, "You should let people know what you're doing."
Some time later, an NYPD detective showed up with Jimmy's clothes and a key ring. She didn't recognize the keys, but something on the ring was his. She kept the clothes for years.
At the time, she did not know the identity of the two cops and told no one of her suspicions. She feared retaliation against her Frank Hydell, who had his own problems with the law.
In April 1998, Frank was gunned down outside a Staten Island strip club. Betty Hydell claims she then told law enforcement officials her belief that two cops had kidnapped her son.
By then, she said she could identify them - claiming some years earlier that she saw Eppolito plugging his 1992 book, "Mafia Cop
," on a talk show and recognized him as the driver of the car she'd seen the day Jimmy went away.Thanks to Greg B. Smith
Monday, March 20, 2006
Drug Dealer Testifies That He Met Accused 'Mafia Cops' in Cemetery
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Defendants joked about being stiffed on payments due in murders, witness says.
Nothing was sacred to the two accused "Mafia cops," not even a Staten Island cemetery, a convicted drug dealer told jurors yesterday in Brooklyn federal court.
Testifying for a second day, Burton Kaplan said that, as the envoy of Luchese crime family underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, he met NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, formerly of Great Kills, in St. Mary's Cemetery, Elm Park.
Gallows humor was the order of the day, he said, as the cops laughed about being stiffed on payments due them for delivering up a Grasmere man to his death and murdering a Brooklyn jeweler. The pair, allegedly on a $4,000-a-month mob retainer, derided Casso for his reputed cheapness, particularly in connection with a mistaken-identity rubout, Kaplan noted.
"[Casso] got the address and number from a guy who worked at the gas company," Kaplan said of the Christmas Day 1986 hit -- not carried out by Eppolito and Caracappa -- on an innocent Brooklyn man.
"It was the wrong Nicky Guido who was killed. Frankie [Santora] and Louie [Eppolito] said the same thing: 'Gas should have paid the money [$4,000 to the detectives] and he would've got the right guy.'"
In arranging his meetings with the now ex-detectives, Kaplan recalled that he would contact Caracappa on his beeper "and put the number 259 behind it so he would know it was me."
Sometimes they met in the parking lot of a church near Caracappa's mother's house in South Beach, Kaplan said.
When Kaplan needed Eppolito, he said, he would call the robust detective's Long Island home. They'd meet at various Long Island locales, and sometimes Eppolito would drive to Kaplan's clothing warehouse on Port Richmond Avenue, the businessman testified.
Kaplan also dealt contraband out of Port Richmond, where he was busted in 1996 for trafficking in huge quantities of marijuana.
Kaplan said it was he who proposed that the two cops be put "on the books" in 1987, providing information on wiretaps, bugs, imminent arrests and names of "hot" police informants. Other jobs were extra.
Kaplan testified that when a scheme went awry, he asked for and received a Casso-sanctioned murder contract on an offending jeweler.
Kaplan said Caracappa, Eppolito and the latter's mobster cousin, Frank Santora, were paid $25,000 to kill "Jeweler No. 2" -- Kaplan couldn't recall the name of Israel Greenwald, who was shot dead in a Brooklyn parking garage after Caracappa and Eppolito allegedly pulled him over in their unmarked police car under the guise of investigating a hit-and-run.
Kaplan told jurors that he gave Santora $30,000 -- including a $5,000 bonus -- meant to be split three ways. But Santora pocketed the five grand, Kaplan said.
He said the cops and Santora were paid $35,000 to kidnap mob associate Jimmy Hydell, who was a marked man after he failed to kill Casso in a hit ordered by the Gambino crime family.
Kaplan said the pair found the Grasmere man in a laundermat in Brooklyn, threw him in the trunk and drove to the parking lot of the Toys "R" Us at Kings Plaza, where Casso and Kaplan were waiting.
Kaplan said he saw the two cops hovering near the entrance to the parking lot "as backup" before Casso told them to leave so he could murder Hydell.
Like the hit on the jeweler, Casso threw in an extra $5,000, which Santora also pocketed, Kaplan testified.
It wasn't until the three met in St. Mary's Cemetery that they realized Santora had done them dirty. "We were laughing about it," Kaplan recalled. "Louie said, 'That's typical of Frankie. Frankie put the rest in his pocket.'"
Thanks to Jeff Harrell
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Defendants joked about being stiffed on payments due in murders, witness says.
Nothing was sacred to the two accused "Mafia cops," not even a Staten Island cemetery, a convicted drug dealer told jurors yesterday in Brooklyn federal court.
Testifying for a second day, Burton Kaplan said that, as the envoy of Luchese crime family underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, he met NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, formerly of Great Kills, in St. Mary's Cemetery, Elm Park.
Gallows humor was the order of the day, he said, as the cops laughed about being stiffed on payments due them for delivering up a Grasmere man to his death and murdering a Brooklyn jeweler. The pair, allegedly on a $4,000-a-month mob retainer, derided Casso for his reputed cheapness, particularly in connection with a mistaken-identity rubout, Kaplan noted.
"[Casso] got the address and number from a guy who worked at the gas company," Kaplan said of the Christmas Day 1986 hit -- not carried out by Eppolito and Caracappa -- on an innocent Brooklyn man.
"It was the wrong Nicky Guido who was killed. Frankie [Santora] and Louie [Eppolito] said the same thing: 'Gas should have paid the money [$4,000 to the detectives] and he would've got the right guy.'"
In arranging his meetings with the now ex-detectives, Kaplan recalled that he would contact Caracappa on his beeper "and put the number 259 behind it so he would know it was me."
Sometimes they met in the parking lot of a church near Caracappa's mother's house in South Beach, Kaplan said.
When Kaplan needed Eppolito, he said, he would call the robust detective's Long Island home. They'd meet at various Long Island locales, and sometimes Eppolito would drive to Kaplan's clothing warehouse on Port Richmond Avenue, the businessman testified.
Kaplan also dealt contraband out of Port Richmond, where he was busted in 1996 for trafficking in huge quantities of marijuana.
Kaplan said it was he who proposed that the two cops be put "on the books" in 1987, providing information on wiretaps, bugs, imminent arrests and names of "hot" police informants. Other jobs were extra.
Kaplan testified that when a scheme went awry, he asked for and received a Casso-sanctioned murder contract on an offending jeweler.
Kaplan said Caracappa, Eppolito and the latter's mobster cousin, Frank Santora, were paid $25,000 to kill "Jeweler No. 2" -- Kaplan couldn't recall the name of Israel Greenwald, who was shot dead in a Brooklyn parking garage after Caracappa and Eppolito allegedly pulled him over in their unmarked police car under the guise of investigating a hit-and-run.
Kaplan told jurors that he gave Santora $30,000 -- including a $5,000 bonus -- meant to be split three ways. But Santora pocketed the five grand, Kaplan said.
He said the cops and Santora were paid $35,000 to kidnap mob associate Jimmy Hydell, who was a marked man after he failed to kill Casso in a hit ordered by the Gambino crime family.
Kaplan said the pair found the Grasmere man in a laundermat in Brooklyn, threw him in the trunk and drove to the parking lot of the Toys "R" Us at Kings Plaza, where Casso and Kaplan were waiting.
Kaplan said he saw the two cops hovering near the entrance to the parking lot "as backup" before Casso told them to leave so he could murder Hydell.
Like the hit on the jeweler, Casso threw in an extra $5,000, which Santora also pocketed, Kaplan testified.
It wasn't until the three met in St. Mary's Cemetery that they realized Santora had done them dirty. "We were laughing about it," Kaplan recalled. "Louie said, 'That's typical of Frankie. Frankie put the rest in his pocket.'"
Thanks to Jeff Harrell
Detectives Were Hired for Contract Killing, Witness Says
Friends of mine: Louis J. Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Fleshing out his tale of gangland murder and corruption, an aging marijuana dealer told jurors at the trial of Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa today that in 1986, the two New York detectives murdered a crooked jeweler in a parking garage and then, years later, laughed about the killing at a secret meeting in a Staten Island cemetery.
It was the second day of testimony by the dealer, Burton Kaplan, in the trial of the two detectives, who are accused of taking part in at least eight murders for Brooklyn's Luchese crime family.
Mr. Kaplan, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence, spun a mesmerizing yarn today about the shooting of Israel Greenwald, a jeweler who had made the grave mistake of crossing him in a scheme to selling stolen Treasury bills.
The marijuana dealer, 72 and ailing, spoke in gravelly, measured tones, saying that he had given the murder contract to Mr. Eppolito's cousin Frank Santora Jr. and that the cousin had then recruited the detective and his partner to stop Mr. Greenwald on the highway, tell him he was wanted in a hit-and-run accident and then assassinate him in cold blood.
"The guy was driving his car," Mr. Kaplan said Mr. Santora had informed him once the contract had been filled. "They put on the flashing lights and pulled him over and told him he was wanted in a hit-and-run and they wanted him to be in a lineup.
"They took him, according to Frank, to an automobile repair place, a collision place, that was a friend of theirs."
It was there, prosecutors say, that the three men bound Mr. Greenwald's hands, shoved a plastic bag on his head, secured it with his own scarf, then shot him twice in the head
Thanks to Alan Feuer
Fleshing out his tale of gangland murder and corruption, an aging marijuana dealer told jurors at the trial of Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa today that in 1986, the two New York detectives murdered a crooked jeweler in a parking garage and then, years later, laughed about the killing at a secret meeting in a Staten Island cemetery.
It was the second day of testimony by the dealer, Burton Kaplan, in the trial of the two detectives, who are accused of taking part in at least eight murders for Brooklyn's Luchese crime family.
Mr. Kaplan, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence, spun a mesmerizing yarn today about the shooting of Israel Greenwald, a jeweler who had made the grave mistake of crossing him in a scheme to selling stolen Treasury bills.
The marijuana dealer, 72 and ailing, spoke in gravelly, measured tones, saying that he had given the murder contract to Mr. Eppolito's cousin Frank Santora Jr. and that the cousin had then recruited the detective and his partner to stop Mr. Greenwald on the highway, tell him he was wanted in a hit-and-run accident and then assassinate him in cold blood.
"The guy was driving his car," Mr. Kaplan said Mr. Santora had informed him once the contract had been filled. "They put on the flashing lights and pulled him over and told him he was wanted in a hit-and-run and they wanted him to be in a lineup.
"They took him, according to Frank, to an automobile repair place, a collision place, that was a friend of theirs."
It was there, prosecutors say, that the three men bound Mr. Greenwald's hands, shoved a plastic bag on his head, secured it with his own scarf, then shot him twice in the head
Thanks to Alan Feuer
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Police Accused of Mafia Ties Head to Trial
Friends of ours: John Gotti, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Lucchese Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
It's a crime story that begs for a best seller: A pair of oft-decorated NYPD detectives are accused of leading double lives, joining the mob's payroll. They allegedly go on a crime spree, leave a trail of dead bodies, and retire to a life as Las Vegas high rollers. But who could write such a bizarre tale?
There's plenty of talent right at the defense table. Ex-detective turned defendant Louis Eppolito wrote an autobiography titled "Mafia Cop" and even appeared in a mob movie. His attorney, Bruce Cutler, wrote "Closing Argument," covering a career that includes defending mob boss John Gotti. Cutler's co-counsel, Edward Hayes, has a memoir titled "Mouthpiece" that just hit stores, and he was a model for a character in a Tom Wolfe novel.
All this media know-how will assemble in court Monday when the so-called "Mafia Cops" - Eppolito and former partner Stephen Caracappa - arrive for opening statements in their racketeering and murder trial.
Expect a few plot twists. "I think there will be some surprises," Hayes predicted. "And I certainly have a few."
According to prosecutors, the two ex-detectives engaged in a cornucopia of criminal activity between 1979 and last year. Their indictment lists eight murders, allegedly at the bidding of Luchese family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Authorities said Casso paid $75,000 for one of the hits, regularly paid the pair $4,000 a month, and referred to them as his "crystal ball."
In one case, the detectives allegedly provided Casso with information to locate a mobster suspected in a murder plot against Casso. The tip, however, led to another man with the same name who died in a hail of gunfire on Christmas Day 1986.
There are charges of racketeering, kidnapping, murder, obstruction of justice, and money laundering, and after the pair retired to Nevada they were distributing methamphetamine, according to the indictment. The list could have been longer; in January, prosecutors opted to drop two additional murder counts.
Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, are both insistent about their innocence. Caracappa went on "60 Minutes" in January to express his indignation.
"Totally ridiculous," he said of the charges. "It's ludicrous. Anybody that knows me knows I love the police department."
Caracappa spent 23 years with the NYPD, working his way up to detective first grade and helping to establish the department's nerve center for Mafia murder investigations before retiring in 1992.
Eppolito actually grew up in a mob family: His father, grandfather and an uncle were all members of the Gambino family. The contrast between his police work and his family life was detailed in his autobiography, "Mafia Cop: The Story of An Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob."
He joined the department in 1969, and also made detective first-grade. Before his 1990 retirement, Eppolito was known among fellow cops as a tough guy with plenty of street smarts. The partners settled in Las Vegas to enjoy their golden years. They were arrested on March 9, 2005, at a Las Vegas restaurant, and released on $5 million bail each.
Their trial promises to be one of the year's great legal spectacles.
The bombastic Cutler is best known for his work with Gotti. In one memorable opening statement, he dramatically spiked the indictment against Gotti in a courtroom trash can.
"Garbage!" he thundered.
Hayes, a former prosecutor, brings his impeccable attire and a glittering client list that includes Robert De Niro and Sean "Diddy" Combs. He was the model for take-no-prisoners defense attorney Tommy Killian in Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities." Hayes said he's willing to let somebody else write about this case: "I already wrote a book."
If someone else takes up the challenge, there's always the chance of a movie - and Eppolito could play himself. He had a bit part in the Martin Scorsese mob classic "GoodFellas."
Thanks to Larry McShane
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
It's a crime story that begs for a best seller: A pair of oft-decorated NYPD detectives are accused of leading double lives, joining the mob's payroll. They allegedly go on a crime spree, leave a trail of dead bodies, and retire to a life as Las Vegas high rollers. But who could write such a bizarre tale?
There's plenty of talent right at the defense table. Ex-detective turned defendant Louis Eppolito wrote an autobiography titled "Mafia Cop" and even appeared in a mob movie. His attorney, Bruce Cutler, wrote "Closing Argument," covering a career that includes defending mob boss John Gotti. Cutler's co-counsel, Edward Hayes, has a memoir titled "Mouthpiece" that just hit stores, and he was a model for a character in a Tom Wolfe novel.
All this media know-how will assemble in court Monday when the so-called "Mafia Cops" - Eppolito and former partner Stephen Caracappa - arrive for opening statements in their racketeering and murder trial.
Expect a few plot twists. "I think there will be some surprises," Hayes predicted. "And I certainly have a few."
According to prosecutors, the two ex-detectives engaged in a cornucopia of criminal activity between 1979 and last year. Their indictment lists eight murders, allegedly at the bidding of Luchese family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Authorities said Casso paid $75,000 for one of the hits, regularly paid the pair $4,000 a month, and referred to them as his "crystal ball."
In one case, the detectives allegedly provided Casso with information to locate a mobster suspected in a murder plot against Casso. The tip, however, led to another man with the same name who died in a hail of gunfire on Christmas Day 1986.
There are charges of racketeering, kidnapping, murder, obstruction of justice, and money laundering, and after the pair retired to Nevada they were distributing methamphetamine, according to the indictment. The list could have been longer; in January, prosecutors opted to drop two additional murder counts.
Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, are both insistent about their innocence. Caracappa went on "60 Minutes" in January to express his indignation.
"Totally ridiculous," he said of the charges. "It's ludicrous. Anybody that knows me knows I love the police department."
Caracappa spent 23 years with the NYPD, working his way up to detective first grade and helping to establish the department's nerve center for Mafia murder investigations before retiring in 1992.
Eppolito actually grew up in a mob family: His father, grandfather and an uncle were all members of the Gambino family. The contrast between his police work and his family life was detailed in his autobiography, "Mafia Cop: The Story of An Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob."
He joined the department in 1969, and also made detective first-grade. Before his 1990 retirement, Eppolito was known among fellow cops as a tough guy with plenty of street smarts. The partners settled in Las Vegas to enjoy their golden years. They were arrested on March 9, 2005, at a Las Vegas restaurant, and released on $5 million bail each.
Their trial promises to be one of the year's great legal spectacles.
The bombastic Cutler is best known for his work with Gotti. In one memorable opening statement, he dramatically spiked the indictment against Gotti in a courtroom trash can.
"Garbage!" he thundered.
Hayes, a former prosecutor, brings his impeccable attire and a glittering client list that includes Robert De Niro and Sean "Diddy" Combs. He was the model for take-no-prisoners defense attorney Tommy Killian in Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities." Hayes said he's willing to let somebody else write about this case: "I already wrote a book."
If someone else takes up the challenge, there's always the chance of a movie - and Eppolito could play himself. He had a bit part in the Martin Scorsese mob classic "GoodFellas."
Thanks to Larry McShane
Friday, March 10, 2006
Trial Begins of NY Cops Charged as Mafia Hit Men
Friends of ours: Luchese Crime Family, Gambino Crime Family, John Gotti
Friends of mine: Stephen Caracappa, Louis Eppolito
Jury selection began on Monday in the federal trial of two former New York detectives accused of having been hit men for the mob in a case the judge predicts will captivate the jurors.
Defendants Stephen Caracappa, 64, and Louis Eppolito, 57, were charged early last year with secretly working for the Luchese crime family while employed as police officers and involvement in 11 murders or attempted murders.
The charges, which also include kidnapping and other crimes, set the stage for a colorful and closely watched trial. Both defendants had served on the force more than 20 years.
Brooklyn U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein set opening arguments for March 13 and assured hundreds of potential jurors assembled in his courtroom the case "will be one of the most interesting experiences of your life." Twelve jurors and six alternates will be selected.
When Eppolito showed up in court 75 minutes late, Weinstein ordered that he be rearrested and that his $5 million bail be revoked until a good explanation was provided.
Weinstein, an 85-year-old former Columbia Law School professor known for toughness, set Eppolito free again after defense lawyer Bruce Cutler explained that his client had been seriously delayed by a "trailer accident" on the highway.
In the courtroom, the tall and overweight defendant seemed at ease, embracing Cutler and trading smiles and pleasantries with Caracappa and his co-defendant's high-profile lawyer, Edward Hayes.
Cutler, best known for his successful defense of the late Gambino crime family boss John Gotti in several trials, said it will be tougher to defend Eppolito because federal prosecutors plan to have at least four Mafia informants and turncoats testify against him. "The federal government is making sweetheart deals with all kinds of people -- including (crime family) acting bosses -- that will say what the government wants to hear," Cutler said in a telephone interview.
After retiring, Eppolito played a bit role as "Fat Andy" in the mob movie "Goodfellas" and played character roles in several other Hollywood productions.
Thanks to Ransdell Pierson
Friends of mine: Stephen Caracappa, Louis Eppolito
Jury selection began on Monday in the federal trial of two former New York detectives accused of having been hit men for the mob in a case the judge predicts will captivate the jurors.
Defendants Stephen Caracappa, 64, and Louis Eppolito, 57, were charged early last year with secretly working for the Luchese crime family while employed as police officers and involvement in 11 murders or attempted murders.
The charges, which also include kidnapping and other crimes, set the stage for a colorful and closely watched trial. Both defendants had served on the force more than 20 years.
Brooklyn U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein set opening arguments for March 13 and assured hundreds of potential jurors assembled in his courtroom the case "will be one of the most interesting experiences of your life." Twelve jurors and six alternates will be selected.
When Eppolito showed up in court 75 minutes late, Weinstein ordered that he be rearrested and that his $5 million bail be revoked until a good explanation was provided.
Weinstein, an 85-year-old former Columbia Law School professor known for toughness, set Eppolito free again after defense lawyer Bruce Cutler explained that his client had been seriously delayed by a "trailer accident" on the highway.
In the courtroom, the tall and overweight defendant seemed at ease, embracing Cutler and trading smiles and pleasantries with Caracappa and his co-defendant's high-profile lawyer, Edward Hayes.
Cutler, best known for his successful defense of the late Gambino crime family boss John Gotti in several trials, said it will be tougher to defend Eppolito because federal prosecutors plan to have at least four Mafia informants and turncoats testify against him. "The federal government is making sweetheart deals with all kinds of people -- including (crime family) acting bosses -- that will say what the government wants to hear," Cutler said in a telephone interview.
After retiring, Eppolito played a bit role as "Fat Andy" in the mob movie "Goodfellas" and played character roles in several other Hollywood productions.
Thanks to Ransdell Pierson
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Real Dons Steal Sopranos Limelight
Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, Vinny "Gorgeous" Basciano, Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo, Bonanno Crime Family, Lucchese Crime Family, John "Dapper Don" Gotti, Joseph Massino
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa, Soprano Crime Family
While the acclaimed TV series bows out, New Yorkers are gripped by the drama of three real-life Mafia-linked trials
The final series of The Sopranos will go out on American TV a week today, beginning the last chapter of its epic chronicle of the lives, loves and murders of the nation's most famous Mob family. But one part of America does not have to wait with bated breath: New York. After all, who needs Tony Soprano and his fictional travails when real mafiosi such as John 'Junior' Gotti, Vinny 'Gorgeous' Basciano and Mikey 'Scars' DiLeonardo stalk the front pages.
In a throwback to the Mob's long-lost heyday, New York has gone Mafia-mad in the past week. No fewer than three high-profile trials are dominating the tabloid press and local TV stations, uncovering a mobster world of hitmen, assassinations and police corruption that even Tony Soprano's scriptwriters would have hesitated to invent.
Top of the heap is the dramatic trial of Gotti, alleged head of the Gambino crime family, whose father was known as the Dapper Don for his sharp suits and high profile on the social scene. Now the junior Gotti faces racketeering charges, including the kidnapping and attempted murder of Curtis Sliwa, a radio host and founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting volunteers. Another case involves Basciano, charged with killing one Mob associate and plotting the death of two others. He is alleged to be acting head of the Bonanno crime family. The third prosecution, set to start within weeks, has been called the 'Mafia cops' trial. It involves allegations that two top policemen, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, worked as hitmen for the Lucchese crime family.
But it is the Gotti trial - with its mix of Mob glamour and death - that has grabbed attention. 'They can still draw a crowd,' said Jerry Capeci, who has written six books on the Mafia. Given the alleged crimes, that is no surprise. In one gripping piece of recent testimony Sliwa told how a gang killer tried to 'whack' him by shooting him in a taxi with its windows and doors rigged so they would not open. As he was travelling to work in Greenwich Village, a man suddenly popped up in the front seat, said 'Take this' and began shooting at him. Sliwa, bleeding from gunshot wounds that left him in hospital for two weeks, escaped by climbing through a broken car window as the taxi zig-zagged down the street.
In another of the trial's 'highlights', one witness, DiLeonardo, revealed that the late Dapper Don had fathered a child by a woman living on Staten Island. That triggered the sort of tabloid frenzy among gossip writers and paparazzi usually associated with Hollywood stars. The child was found to be a 19-year-old dental student. 'I feel bad for my daughter. It's 2006. We want to move on,' said her mother, Shannon Connelly.
The Gotti trial has been so highly publicised that tourists have been flocking to the Manhattan court for a dose of the real Sopranos. But all the court cases have exposed crimes that are hard to romanticise. Prosecutors say Basciano blasted one rival with a 12-gauge shotgun. The attack on Sliwa left him needing a colostomy bag after one bullet went through his intestines. There are drug rings, extortion, bribery and cold, hard killings: all revealed in sordid detail.
Yet the real story is that these cases have all been brought simultaneously, dealing what remains of the Mafia in New York a potentially fatal blow. The FBI and police have so successfully infiltrated the gangs over the past two decades that the Mob is a shadow of its former self. Many of the witnesses are turncoats from the highest levels of an organisation once thought impenetrable. The main evidence against Basciano comes from conversations taped by former don Joseph Massino, the first head of a Mafia family to wear a wire and betray his associates. Gotti's lawyer has used this as a defence, saying his client was born into the Mob family but wanted to leave due to the huge degree of betrayal. 'He saw a life where his father went to jail for the rest of his life, died locked away from his family, based on the testimony of a serial killer who was supposed to be his closest associate. He saw the treachery first hand,' said Charles Carnesi.
When it comes to the old values of silence and loyalty, it is other ethnic gangs in New York, such as the Russians and the Chinese Triads, who are far more of a criminal threat. Neighbourhoods dominated by Russians and Chinese are full of new immigrants vulnerable to gangs; meanwhile the Italians have moved to Long Island or New Jersey.
Yet despite the decline in the Mafia's power, it still dominates the headlines more than any other form of organised crime. That is far more to do with the media and Hollywood than reality. For the American love affair with the Mafia is one based on the entertainment industry.
Before the Gotti trial began last month the once-feared family's name had been best known recently for a tawdry reality TV show starring Gotti Junior's sister, Victoria, called Growing Up Gotti. It has been a steady decline from the Oscar-winning art of the Godfather movies to the high-class soap opera of The Sopranos and finally to reality television.
Tony Soprano would recognise that as a rule of the fictional gangsters: No one lives forever, everyone gets whacked in the end. Even, perhaps, the Mafia itself.
Thanks to Paul Harris
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa, Soprano Crime Family
While the acclaimed TV series bows out, New Yorkers are gripped by the drama of three real-life Mafia-linked trials
The final series of The Sopranos will go out on American TV a week today, beginning the last chapter of its epic chronicle of the lives, loves and murders of the nation's most famous Mob family. But one part of America does not have to wait with bated breath: New York. After all, who needs Tony Soprano and his fictional travails when real mafiosi such as John 'Junior' Gotti, Vinny 'Gorgeous' Basciano and Mikey 'Scars' DiLeonardo stalk the front pages.
In a throwback to the Mob's long-lost heyday, New York has gone Mafia-mad in the past week. No fewer than three high-profile trials are dominating the tabloid press and local TV stations, uncovering a mobster world of hitmen, assassinations and police corruption that even Tony Soprano's scriptwriters would have hesitated to invent.
Top of the heap is the dramatic trial of Gotti, alleged head of the Gambino crime family, whose father was known as the Dapper Don for his sharp suits and high profile on the social scene. Now the junior Gotti faces racketeering charges, including the kidnapping and attempted murder of Curtis Sliwa, a radio host and founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting volunteers. Another case involves Basciano, charged with killing one Mob associate and plotting the death of two others. He is alleged to be acting head of the Bonanno crime family. The third prosecution, set to start within weeks, has been called the 'Mafia cops' trial. It involves allegations that two top policemen, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, worked as hitmen for the Lucchese crime family.
But it is the Gotti trial - with its mix of Mob glamour and death - that has grabbed attention. 'They can still draw a crowd,' said Jerry Capeci, who has written six books on the Mafia. Given the alleged crimes, that is no surprise. In one gripping piece of recent testimony Sliwa told how a gang killer tried to 'whack' him by shooting him in a taxi with its windows and doors rigged so they would not open. As he was travelling to work in Greenwich Village, a man suddenly popped up in the front seat, said 'Take this' and began shooting at him. Sliwa, bleeding from gunshot wounds that left him in hospital for two weeks, escaped by climbing through a broken car window as the taxi zig-zagged down the street.
In another of the trial's 'highlights', one witness, DiLeonardo, revealed that the late Dapper Don had fathered a child by a woman living on Staten Island. That triggered the sort of tabloid frenzy among gossip writers and paparazzi usually associated with Hollywood stars. The child was found to be a 19-year-old dental student. 'I feel bad for my daughter. It's 2006. We want to move on,' said her mother, Shannon Connelly.
The Gotti trial has been so highly publicised that tourists have been flocking to the Manhattan court for a dose of the real Sopranos. But all the court cases have exposed crimes that are hard to romanticise. Prosecutors say Basciano blasted one rival with a 12-gauge shotgun. The attack on Sliwa left him needing a colostomy bag after one bullet went through his intestines. There are drug rings, extortion, bribery and cold, hard killings: all revealed in sordid detail.
Yet the real story is that these cases have all been brought simultaneously, dealing what remains of the Mafia in New York a potentially fatal blow. The FBI and police have so successfully infiltrated the gangs over the past two decades that the Mob is a shadow of its former self. Many of the witnesses are turncoats from the highest levels of an organisation once thought impenetrable. The main evidence against Basciano comes from conversations taped by former don Joseph Massino, the first head of a Mafia family to wear a wire and betray his associates. Gotti's lawyer has used this as a defence, saying his client was born into the Mob family but wanted to leave due to the huge degree of betrayal. 'He saw a life where his father went to jail for the rest of his life, died locked away from his family, based on the testimony of a serial killer who was supposed to be his closest associate. He saw the treachery first hand,' said Charles Carnesi.
When it comes to the old values of silence and loyalty, it is other ethnic gangs in New York, such as the Russians and the Chinese Triads, who are far more of a criminal threat. Neighbourhoods dominated by Russians and Chinese are full of new immigrants vulnerable to gangs; meanwhile the Italians have moved to Long Island or New Jersey.
Yet despite the decline in the Mafia's power, it still dominates the headlines more than any other form of organised crime. That is far more to do with the media and Hollywood than reality. For the American love affair with the Mafia is one based on the entertainment industry.
Before the Gotti trial began last month the once-feared family's name had been best known recently for a tawdry reality TV show starring Gotti Junior's sister, Victoria, called Growing Up Gotti. It has been a steady decline from the Oscar-winning art of the Godfather movies to the high-class soap opera of The Sopranos and finally to reality television.
Tony Soprano would recognise that as a rule of the fictional gangsters: No one lives forever, everyone gets whacked in the end. Even, perhaps, the Mafia itself.
Thanks to Paul Harris
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Bad Cops First, Then Mob Cops?
Friends of ours: Burton Kaplan, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Luchese Crime Family, Gambino Crime Family, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, John Gotti, Paul Castellano
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa
Before they were mob cops, they were bad cops. On top of eight murders, disgraced NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa are accused of other sordid deeds while wearing their shields - including drug use and robbing stores for extra cash.
Caracappa, 64, boasted to one witness expected to testify at their pending trial that he dabbled with cocaine while working as an undercover narcotics cop, according to court papers filed by the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office.
The ex-detective also admitted to Mafia turncoat Burton Kaplan - the go-between for the pair and Luchese family boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso - he and Eppolito used to hold up local delis for spending money in the late '70s, when the two started working together.
Prosecutors also unveiled allegations that when Eppolito was getting ready to hang up his badge, he asked Kaplan for cash so he could use it to bribe doctors into lying that he had a bad heart.
The court document, which prosecutors hope the judge presiding over the case will allow into evidence, details the numerous shady dealings the cops had with the Mafia.
The two were busted in Las Vegas last March on charges that they acted as assassins and moles for the Luchese crime family in the '80s and '90s.
Eppolito began taking bribes for leaking information to mobsters as early as 1979, the papers say, while Caracappa joined five years later, and the two were put on a $4,000-a-month retainer.
Some of the jobs prosecutors say the pair took on:
The documents go on to describe a conversation Caracappa had with Kaplan. Caracappa said he would "keep an eye on Eppolito, because both feared Eppolito would cooperate against them," the court papers say.
"Caracappa was the real thing - a hero," said his lawyer, Ed Hayes. "I look forward to confronting these human monsters who say otherwise in court."
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa
Before they were mob cops, they were bad cops. On top of eight murders, disgraced NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa are accused of other sordid deeds while wearing their shields - including drug use and robbing stores for extra cash.
Caracappa, 64, boasted to one witness expected to testify at their pending trial that he dabbled with cocaine while working as an undercover narcotics cop, according to court papers filed by the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office.
The ex-detective also admitted to Mafia turncoat Burton Kaplan - the go-between for the pair and Luchese family boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso - he and Eppolito used to hold up local delis for spending money in the late '70s, when the two started working together.
Prosecutors also unveiled allegations that when Eppolito was getting ready to hang up his badge, he asked Kaplan for cash so he could use it to bribe doctors into lying that he had a bad heart.
The court document, which prosecutors hope the judge presiding over the case will allow into evidence, details the numerous shady dealings the cops had with the Mafia.
The two were busted in Las Vegas last March on charges that they acted as assassins and moles for the Luchese crime family in the '80s and '90s.
Eppolito began taking bribes for leaking information to mobsters as early as 1979, the papers say, while Caracappa joined five years later, and the two were put on a $4,000-a-month retainer.
Some of the jobs prosecutors say the pair took on:
- In 1982, Eppolito tried to get a $5,000 bribe from Gambino big-turned-rat Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano to not investigate a murder Gravano was suspected of committing. Prosecutors did not say if he ever received the cash.
- In 1990, Casso offered to pay them to assassinate Gravano to avenge the murder of Paul Castellano by John Gotti. The pair declined the contract.
The documents go on to describe a conversation Caracappa had with Kaplan. Caracappa said he would "keep an eye on Eppolito, because both feared Eppolito would cooperate against them," the court papers say.
"Caracappa was the real thing - a hero," said his lawyer, Ed Hayes. "I look forward to confronting these human monsters who say otherwise in court."
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Detectives Who Broke "Mafia Cops" Case Won't Testify At Trial
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
The former detectives credited with breaking the so-called "mafia cops" case will not testify at the upcoming trial.
Former NYPD detectives Thomas Dades and William Oldham were able to get a key informer to speak, which led to the charges against disgraced former police officers Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. However, the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office said Tuesday it has decided not to use Dades and Oldham as witnesses.
The news comes as the defense team works to uncover disciplinary action about Dades and Oldham which could hurt their credibility.
Eppolito and Caracappa are charged with helping to carry out hits for the mob while they were on the police force. Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges. The two men are currently under house arrest, out on $5 million bail. The trial is set to begin later this month.
The former detectives credited with breaking the so-called "mafia cops" case will not testify at the upcoming trial.
Former NYPD detectives Thomas Dades and William Oldham were able to get a key informer to speak, which led to the charges against disgraced former police officers Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. However, the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office said Tuesday it has decided not to use Dades and Oldham as witnesses.
The news comes as the defense team works to uncover disciplinary action about Dades and Oldham which could hurt their credibility.
Eppolito and Caracappa are charged with helping to carry out hits for the mob while they were on the police force. Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges. The two men are currently under house arrest, out on $5 million bail. The trial is set to begin later this month.
Friday, January 27, 2006
'Mafia Cops' prosecutors drop two murders
Friends of ours: John Gotti, Bartolomeo "Bobby" Boriello, Luchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Gambino Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
With less than a month before trial, Brooklyn federal prosecutors slimmed down the indictment against the "Mafia Cops" by dropping two murders that were part of the racketeering conspiracy charged against the ex-cops. A new indictment unsealed Thursday showed that prosecutors, seeking to simplify the trial, have decided to weed out the 1990 murder of union official James Bishop and the 1991 killing of one-time John Gotti crony Bartolomeo "Bobby" Boriello.
Former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito, 57, and Stephen Caracappa, 64, have been charged with playing roles in as many as 10 homicides, including some while they were police officers, for members of the Luchese crime family. Some of the murders were believed to have been part of a scheme by former Luchese boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso to avenge a foiled assassination plot against him.
Bishop, an official of Painters Union Local 37, was killed because he was believed by the mob to have been an informant, said prosecutors. Investigators said Boriello was killed after Eppolito and Caracappa provided information to Casso that the Gambino soldier had threatened him. Eppolito and Caracappa, who have denied the charges against them, are slated to go to trial Feb. 21 before Judge Jack B. Weinstein in Brooklyn federal district court.
The Bishop and Boriello homicides were dropped from the case to streamline the prosecution witness list. Last year Weinstein expressed doubts that he would allow prosecutors Mitra Hormozi and Robert Henoch to call as many as 100 witnesses.
As many as 10 potential witnesses now don't have to be called, said the source, who added that prosecutors will try to introduce evidence of the two killings as uncharged crimes if Weinstein allows it.
"Our defense is that Steve Caracappa is a hero, not a criminal," defense attorney Edward Hayes said Thursday. Bruce Cutler, who is defending Eppolito, couldn't be reached for comment.
Thanks to Anthony DeStefano
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
With less than a month before trial, Brooklyn federal prosecutors slimmed down the indictment against the "Mafia Cops" by dropping two murders that were part of the racketeering conspiracy charged against the ex-cops. A new indictment unsealed Thursday showed that prosecutors, seeking to simplify the trial, have decided to weed out the 1990 murder of union official James Bishop and the 1991 killing of one-time John Gotti crony Bartolomeo "Bobby" Boriello.
Former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito, 57, and Stephen Caracappa, 64, have been charged with playing roles in as many as 10 homicides, including some while they were police officers, for members of the Luchese crime family. Some of the murders were believed to have been part of a scheme by former Luchese boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso to avenge a foiled assassination plot against him.
Bishop, an official of Painters Union Local 37, was killed because he was believed by the mob to have been an informant, said prosecutors. Investigators said Boriello was killed after Eppolito and Caracappa provided information to Casso that the Gambino soldier had threatened him. Eppolito and Caracappa, who have denied the charges against them, are slated to go to trial Feb. 21 before Judge Jack B. Weinstein in Brooklyn federal district court.
The Bishop and Boriello homicides were dropped from the case to streamline the prosecution witness list. Last year Weinstein expressed doubts that he would allow prosecutors Mitra Hormozi and Robert Henoch to call as many as 100 witnesses.
As many as 10 potential witnesses now don't have to be called, said the source, who added that prosecutors will try to introduce evidence of the two killings as uncharged crimes if Weinstein allows it.
"Our defense is that Steve Caracappa is a hero, not a criminal," defense attorney Edward Hayes said Thursday. Bruce Cutler, who is defending Eppolito, couldn't be reached for comment.
Thanks to Anthony DeStefano
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Murdered man's mother files $150M suit against city, 'Mafia Cops'
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Nicholas Guido
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
The mother of a Brooklyn man shot dead on Christmas Day 1986 in a case of the mob mistakenly killing the wrong man is suing the so-called "Mafia Cops" and the city for his murder. Pauline Pipitone, whose son Nicholas Guido, 26, was killed as he sat in a car after a holiday dinner, has charged in her lawsuit filed in Brooklyn federal court that former detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were part of the mob blunder that led to Guido's death.
Pipitone, who is executor of her son's estate, is suing for $150 million. She alleges that the NYPD failed to aggressively investigate allegations that Eppolito and Caracappa had been linked to criminal activity. Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were indicted last year on charges they moonlighted as hit men and intelligence moles for the mob while they were cops. The indictment charged that as many as 10 murders are linked to their activities for former Luchese crime family acting boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
In the case of Guido, federal prosecutors have alleged that Eppolito and Caracappa funneled information to Casso, who was seeking revenge after being targeted in a failed assassination plot. Casso and his cohorts were seeking a reputed Gambino associate named "Nicholas Guido," 29, for being part of the the plot to kill the Luchese leader. Investigators have charged that Eppolito and Caracappa accessed NYPD databases to locate Guido for the mob, but erroneously came across Pipitone's son, a telephone company employee who had no criminal affiliations.
Pipitone's court complaint, which is seeking damages for Guido's wrongful death and deprivation of his constitutional rights, was filed last Thursday and appears to incorporate the allegations contained in the federal charges.
Eppolito and Caracappa, who are currently free under house arrest conditions on $5 million bail, have denied all the charges. They are scheduled to go to trial next month in Brooklyn federal court before Judge Jack B. Weinstein, although defense attorneys are seeking an adjournment.
Last week, federal officials in Las Vegas secured a tax evasion indictment against Eppolito and his wife, Francis. Investigators allege Eppolito didn't report income he made from various book and film deals.
"It was a terrible, terrible crime, but it isn't possible Caracappa could have committed it," said Edward Hayes, the lawyer representing Caracappa, about the Guido murder.
Hayes said the NYPD knew very early on the correct name of the "Guido" allegedly involved in the Casso assassination plot and that presumably that name was in the NYPD databases.
Defense attorney Bruce Cutler, who is defending Eppolito, couldn't be reached for comment Sunday.
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
The mother of a Brooklyn man shot dead on Christmas Day 1986 in a case of the mob mistakenly killing the wrong man is suing the so-called "Mafia Cops" and the city for his murder. Pauline Pipitone, whose son Nicholas Guido, 26, was killed as he sat in a car after a holiday dinner, has charged in her lawsuit filed in Brooklyn federal court that former detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were part of the mob blunder that led to Guido's death.
Pipitone, who is executor of her son's estate, is suing for $150 million. She alleges that the NYPD failed to aggressively investigate allegations that Eppolito and Caracappa had been linked to criminal activity. Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were indicted last year on charges they moonlighted as hit men and intelligence moles for the mob while they were cops. The indictment charged that as many as 10 murders are linked to their activities for former Luchese crime family acting boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
In the case of Guido, federal prosecutors have alleged that Eppolito and Caracappa funneled information to Casso, who was seeking revenge after being targeted in a failed assassination plot. Casso and his cohorts were seeking a reputed Gambino associate named "Nicholas Guido," 29, for being part of the the plot to kill the Luchese leader. Investigators have charged that Eppolito and Caracappa accessed NYPD databases to locate Guido for the mob, but erroneously came across Pipitone's son, a telephone company employee who had no criminal affiliations.
Pipitone's court complaint, which is seeking damages for Guido's wrongful death and deprivation of his constitutional rights, was filed last Thursday and appears to incorporate the allegations contained in the federal charges.
Eppolito and Caracappa, who are currently free under house arrest conditions on $5 million bail, have denied all the charges. They are scheduled to go to trial next month in Brooklyn federal court before Judge Jack B. Weinstein, although defense attorneys are seeking an adjournment.
Last week, federal officials in Las Vegas secured a tax evasion indictment against Eppolito and his wife, Francis. Investigators allege Eppolito didn't report income he made from various book and film deals.
"It was a terrible, terrible crime, but it isn't possible Caracappa could have committed it," said Edward Hayes, the lawyer representing Caracappa, about the Guido murder.
Hayes said the NYPD knew very early on the correct name of the "Guido" allegedly involved in the Casso assassination plot and that presumably that name was in the NYPD databases.
Defense attorney Bruce Cutler, who is defending Eppolito, couldn't be reached for comment Sunday.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Alleged mob cop's wife arrested for tax evasion
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
The wife of "Mafia Cop" Louis Eppolito was arrested Wednesday in Las Vegas on federal tax evasion charges, defense attorney Bruce Cutler said. Fran Eppolito was taken into custody by federal agents on the basis of a complaint that accused her of not paying taxes, Cutler said. Cutler, who is representing Louis Eppolito in a Brooklyn federal indictment, said details of Fran Eppolito's case were not available late Wednesday. Officials at the Las Vegas U.S. attorney's office wouldn't comment on any case pending the unsealing of court documents.
Eppolito's husband, a former NYPD detective, was indicted last year on charges he and his partner, Stephen Caracappa, worked as hit men for the Luchese crime family while they were police officers in the the 1980s and '90s.
Federal prosecutors allege that they took tens of thousands of dollars from former acting Luchese boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso to carry out gangland hits and funnel confidential law enforcement information to the mob. In total, prosecutors have charged the pair with involvment in 10 homicides.
Both Louis Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, have been free on $5 million bail and are under house arrest in the New York City area. They are scheduled to go on trial next month in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
Cutler characterized the arrest of Eppolito's wife as "a low-blow thing." Rather than handling tax matters with "civility," the government engaged in "federal thuggery" by using an indictment in such fashion.
The Brooklyn-born Eppolito and his wife moved to Las Vegas after he left the police force in early 1990 after suffering a heart attack. He had been highly decorated during his 21 years as a cop, earning more than 100 medals of recognition and two medals for valor, his attorney said.
Fran Eppolito has been a regular spectator at her husband's Brooklyn court appearances.
Thanks to Anthony Destefano
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
The wife of "Mafia Cop" Louis Eppolito was arrested Wednesday in Las Vegas on federal tax evasion charges, defense attorney Bruce Cutler said. Fran Eppolito was taken into custody by federal agents on the basis of a complaint that accused her of not paying taxes, Cutler said. Cutler, who is representing Louis Eppolito in a Brooklyn federal indictment, said details of Fran Eppolito's case were not available late Wednesday. Officials at the Las Vegas U.S. attorney's office wouldn't comment on any case pending the unsealing of court documents.
Eppolito's husband, a former NYPD detective, was indicted last year on charges he and his partner, Stephen Caracappa, worked as hit men for the Luchese crime family while they were police officers in the the 1980s and '90s.
Federal prosecutors allege that they took tens of thousands of dollars from former acting Luchese boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso to carry out gangland hits and funnel confidential law enforcement information to the mob. In total, prosecutors have charged the pair with involvment in 10 homicides.
Both Louis Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, have been free on $5 million bail and are under house arrest in the New York City area. They are scheduled to go on trial next month in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
Cutler characterized the arrest of Eppolito's wife as "a low-blow thing." Rather than handling tax matters with "civility," the government engaged in "federal thuggery" by using an indictment in such fashion.
The Brooklyn-born Eppolito and his wife moved to Las Vegas after he left the police force in early 1990 after suffering a heart attack. He had been highly decorated during his 21 years as a cop, earning more than 100 medals of recognition and two medals for valor, his attorney said.
Fran Eppolito has been a regular spectator at her husband's Brooklyn court appearances.
Thanks to Anthony Destefano
Monday, January 09, 2006
Alleged Mafia Cop Speaks Out
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Eddie Lino, Nicholas Guido
Friends of mine" Stephen Caraccappa, Louis Eppolito, Burton Kaplan
Over the years, 60 Minutes has done its share of stories about police corruption, but none more outrageous than the one you’re about to hear: it's the story of two New York City police officers who stand accused of being hired killers for the mafia. Stephen Caraccappa and Louis Eppolito - two highly decorated former detectives - are set to go on trial next month, charged with the murders of 10 people, murders committed on the orders of a vicious mob boss. For the first time, one of those detectives, Stephen Caracappa, who is free on bail, talks to correspondent Ed Bradley and answers the allegations that he betrayed his badge and became a mafia hitman.
Caracappa says the allegations against him are ridiculous. "It's ludicrous. Anybody that knows me, knows I love the police department. I couldn't kill anybody. I shot a guy once on the job, and I still think about it. It bothers me," he says.
Why does he think police went after him? "I could come up with 100 different scenarios. But none of the scenarios make any sense to me, myself," says Caracappa. "All I know is that I am here now. And, I'm fighting for my life. I'm fighting for my reputation. I want to be vindicated of this. And, I'm mad. I'm angry."
For most of his 23-year career in the New York City Police Department, Stephen Caracappa was widely respected for his tenacity and savvy in cracking complicated cases. He rose from street patrolman to undercover narcotics officer, to first-grade detective, receiving numerous commendations along the way. He helped create the prestigious organized-crime homicide unit. His mission was to investigate the Lucchese crime family but instead, prosecutors say that in 1985 Caracappa and his former partner Louis Eppolito actually joined the family, and began working for its brutal boss, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Speaking to Ed Bradley in a 1998 prison interview, Casso said, "I have two detectives that work the major squad team for the New York Police Department." Asked what their names were, Casso told Bradley, "Lou Eppolito and Steve – he’s got a long last name, Ca... Capis..."
"Caracappa?" Bradley asked.
"Caracappa yeah," Casso replied. "Caracappa, whatever it is. I can’t say it all the time you know. Louis is a big guy who works out. Steve is a little small skinny guy."
Casso remains in the prison, serving a life sentence after admitting to 36 murders. He told Bradley about the extraordinary relationship he had with Detectives Caracappa and Eppolito. He also told his story to federal prosecutors, spelling out how, for a hefty salary, Caracappa and Eppolito would walk right up to Casso’s enemies, trick them into believing they were under arrest, and then deliver them to Casso to be executed.
That’s exactly what Casso told 60 Minutes the detectives did to a young hood named Jimmy Hydell. "They put him in the car. The kid thought they were taking him to the station house. But they took him to a garage. When they got to the garage, they laid him on the floor; they tied his feet, his handcuffs, put him in the trunk of the car," Casso said. "After that, I killed the kid. Myself, at that time I gave Louis and Steve, I think, $45,000 for delivering him to me."
"You gave them a bonus for delivering some one to you, you killed?" Bradley asked.
"Right. Well they wanted to kill for me. I didn’t even have to do it. They were gonna get him, kill him and do whatever I wanted to do with him," Casso replied in the 1998 interview.
"I don’t know Hydell, never met Hydell, says Caracappa. "I never met Anthony Casso. I don't know Anthony Casso."
What about Casso's claim that he had met Caracappa during the alleged delivery of Jimmy Hydell? "Mr. Bradley, I never met - I spoke to Anthony Casso. Never," Caracappa says.
Why would Casso lie? "To save himself, I would assume," says Caracappa. "But, why would he use me? I don't know."
Casso was, in fact, hoping to save himself, and reduce his sentence, when he first told his astonishing account to investigators 12 years ago. But prosecutors say they couldn’t charge Eppolito and Caracappa then because they couldn’t prove Casso's story. But now they have witnesses to many of the murders who corroborate what Casso had to say. Among them is Jimmy Hydell’s mother, who told investigators that the detectives came to her house looking for her son a few hours before he was abducted and killed, and a garage worker who told authorities where to dig up the body of another man Caracappa and Eppolito allegedly buried beneath a lot in Brooklyn.
The most brazen crime former Detectives Eppolito and Caracappa are accused of took place along New York City’s Belt Parkway. Allegedly in broad daylight, the two detectives pulled over a car driven by a mobster named Eddie Lino. They flashed their badges, and according to prosecutors, shot him dead.
"I gave them $75,000. They killed him, like, cowboy style. They pulled alongside of him. They shot him. They made him crash into the fence alongside the Belt Parkway on the service road. Right? Then Steve got out of the car, ran across the street and finished shooting him. Finished killing him in the car," Casso said during the 1998 interview.
It's a claim Caracappa denies. "I was a New York City detective for 23 years. We don't go around killing people. I did not kill Eddie Lino. I'm not a cowboy," he says.
Caracappa agrees that being on the police force doesn't automatically mean someone is a good guy and acknowledges that there have been members of the police force who have killed.
"So, that doesn't, you know, that's not a good answer for me to say, 'I didn't do it because I'm on the job,'" Bradley says.
"No, it's my answer. It's my answer because I have pride in myself, Mr. Bradley," Caracappa replies. "I wouldn't do something like that. Put my life in jeopardy. My family. Disgrace the badge. Disgrace the city. Take everything that I had worked for my whole life and throw it away? And, killed somebody in the street like a cowboy? That's not my style. It's not me."
"If you thought you wouldn't get caught?" Bradley asks.
"Get caught? Everybody gets caught. And, the person who did this is gonna get caught," says Caracappa.
Caracappa says he’s also speaking for his friend and co-defendant Louis Eppolito, who declined 60 Minutes' request for an interview.
"He’s not the monster the newspapers portrayed him to be," says Caracappa. "We’ll put up the evidence to show that we couldn’t have done these crimes. We just couldn’t have done 'em." But prosecutors say Stephen Caracappa left a paper trail - a key piece of evidence – proving he used his position to access police department computers andfunnel confidential information to Anthony Casso about the whereabouts of his enemies. One of them was a mobster named Nicholas Guido.
Investigators say Caracappa ran that name through his computer, mistakenly came up with an address for the wrong Nicholas Guido and a few weeks later, it led Casso to kill an innocent man. "I don’t remember running Nicholas Guido in the computer. But if they have a printout saying I did, I probably did. I ran countless names in the computer," says Caracappa.
So does Caracappa think Guido's murder was just a coincidence? "I don't know if it's a coincidence," he says. "But, if I did anything and I had to run a name, it's down on paper and it's documented why I did it…. And, who I did it for. And, I definitely didn't do it for any wise guy."
Stephen Caracappa’s lawyer, Ed Hayes, argues it would have been implausible for a first-grade detective like Caracappa to make such a rookie mistake. "If he had been looking for the right Nicky Guido, it would have been easy for him to find him," says Hayes. "It’s practically impossible to me to assume that he would have made this mistake. Because he's based his whole career on avoiding that kind of mistake, assuming you're going to kill people for money, you want to kill the right guy. Not the wrong guy. Otherwise you got to kill two people for the price of one, right?"
Maybe he was just sloppy. "Yeah. Maybe he made a mistake. Or maybe he didn't do it," says Hayes. "But in our system, you don't convict somebody on a maybe."
While that may be, prosecutors have also obtained information from a former top associate of Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso named Burton Kaplan, a convicted narcotics trafficker, who claims he personally paid detectives Caracappa and Eppolito when they committed murders for Casso. Ed Hayes says neither Casso nor Kaplan have any credibility.
"You have several individuals that even by criminal standards are revolting. And I think they saw this as an opportunity to make a plan, where they could get special treatment and get out of jail. And in fact, Burt Kaplan, who’s a drug dealer, a super large money launderer, has gotten out of jail because of making these accusations," says Hayes.
Stephen Caracappa says he knows he is being framed. And he says he has a good idea why he was implicated in the first place: his relationship with Louis Eppolito, who came from a family of mobsters, and wrote a book about it, titled "Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was The Mob." In the book, Eppolito brags about socializing with mobsters and torturing suspects when he was on the job.
Does Caracappa fear jurors might know of the book and lump him in by guilt of association? "It could be. But if you knew Louie Eppolito and you spoke to Louie Eppolito, and you spent any time with him, you would see he couldn't do that. The guy is gentle," says Caracappa. But there’s a separate case that paints a dark picture of Louis Eppolito, involving Barry Gibbs, who spent 19 years in prison for a murder prosecutors now say he didn’t commit. He was freed four months ago, after a judge ruled that Det. Eppolito, who investigated the crime, intimidated the only eyewitness in the case into falsely testifying against Gibbs.
"He is a corrupt cop, and he is no good, and that’s the end of it," says Gibbs. "He ruined my life. He could have done that to anybody. It just so happens it was me. He could have done it you. He could have done it to anybody sitting here."
That eyewitness who testified against Gibbs was a former Marine, Peter Mitchell. In 1986, Mitchell saw a man dumping a woman’s body along a road in Brooklyn. He gave a description of the suspect to Eppolito, who was on the scene investigating the murder, and while his description bore no resemblance to Barry Gibbs, Mitchell says Eppolito threatened to hurt him and his family, if he refused to pick Gibbs out of a police lineup and point the finger at him in court.
Mitchell admits he knew he was lying on the stand and that his testimony would land Gibbs in jail. "Yeah, but you know what? I don't want this cop after me," says Mitchell.
How could he do that? "How could I do that? My family was on the line here. And I, if I had to do it, I'll do it again," says Mitchell.
Mitchell says that if he hadn't fingered Barry Gibbs he would be dead.
As for Barry Gibbs, he would still be in prison today if prosecutors hadn’t stumbled across his case file last spring during a search of Louis Eppolito’s home. Eppolito has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing in this case, and claims he did nothing improper. The former detective made a brief statement to reporters recently about the 10 murder charges against him.
"I was a very highly decorated cop. I worked very hard my whole life and I just wanted people to know I’m not the person that they’re portraying me," he said.
Asked by a reporter if he was ever a bad cop, Eppolito replied, "Never in my life, never."
The question for the jury in this case, which goes to trial next month, is: did two decorated police officers cross the thin blue line and become hitmen for the mafia?
"You must know that if you get convicted on even one of these murder charges, you'll go down in history as one of the most corrupt cops in the history of the department," says Bradley. "That's true, Mr. Bradley, but I won't be convicted, because I didn't do this," replies Caracappa. "I won't, didn't do it. So I'm not gonna be convicted. I won't have that on my epitaph."
Courtesy of 60 Minutes
Friends of mine" Stephen Caraccappa, Louis Eppolito, Burton Kaplan
Over the years, 60 Minutes has done its share of stories about police corruption, but none more outrageous than the one you’re about to hear: it's the story of two New York City police officers who stand accused of being hired killers for the mafia. Stephen Caraccappa and Louis Eppolito - two highly decorated former detectives - are set to go on trial next month, charged with the murders of 10 people, murders committed on the orders of a vicious mob boss. For the first time, one of those detectives, Stephen Caracappa, who is free on bail, talks to correspondent Ed Bradley and answers the allegations that he betrayed his badge and became a mafia hitman.
Caracappa says the allegations against him are ridiculous. "It's ludicrous. Anybody that knows me, knows I love the police department. I couldn't kill anybody. I shot a guy once on the job, and I still think about it. It bothers me," he says.
Why does he think police went after him? "I could come up with 100 different scenarios. But none of the scenarios make any sense to me, myself," says Caracappa. "All I know is that I am here now. And, I'm fighting for my life. I'm fighting for my reputation. I want to be vindicated of this. And, I'm mad. I'm angry."
For most of his 23-year career in the New York City Police Department, Stephen Caracappa was widely respected for his tenacity and savvy in cracking complicated cases. He rose from street patrolman to undercover narcotics officer, to first-grade detective, receiving numerous commendations along the way. He helped create the prestigious organized-crime homicide unit. His mission was to investigate the Lucchese crime family but instead, prosecutors say that in 1985 Caracappa and his former partner Louis Eppolito actually joined the family, and began working for its brutal boss, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Speaking to Ed Bradley in a 1998 prison interview, Casso said, "I have two detectives that work the major squad team for the New York Police Department." Asked what their names were, Casso told Bradley, "Lou Eppolito and Steve – he’s got a long last name, Ca... Capis..."
"Caracappa?" Bradley asked.
"Caracappa yeah," Casso replied. "Caracappa, whatever it is. I can’t say it all the time you know. Louis is a big guy who works out. Steve is a little small skinny guy."
Casso remains in the prison, serving a life sentence after admitting to 36 murders. He told Bradley about the extraordinary relationship he had with Detectives Caracappa and Eppolito. He also told his story to federal prosecutors, spelling out how, for a hefty salary, Caracappa and Eppolito would walk right up to Casso’s enemies, trick them into believing they were under arrest, and then deliver them to Casso to be executed.
That’s exactly what Casso told 60 Minutes the detectives did to a young hood named Jimmy Hydell. "They put him in the car. The kid thought they were taking him to the station house. But they took him to a garage. When they got to the garage, they laid him on the floor; they tied his feet, his handcuffs, put him in the trunk of the car," Casso said. "After that, I killed the kid. Myself, at that time I gave Louis and Steve, I think, $45,000 for delivering him to me."
"You gave them a bonus for delivering some one to you, you killed?" Bradley asked.
"Right. Well they wanted to kill for me. I didn’t even have to do it. They were gonna get him, kill him and do whatever I wanted to do with him," Casso replied in the 1998 interview.
"I don’t know Hydell, never met Hydell, says Caracappa. "I never met Anthony Casso. I don't know Anthony Casso."
What about Casso's claim that he had met Caracappa during the alleged delivery of Jimmy Hydell? "Mr. Bradley, I never met - I spoke to Anthony Casso. Never," Caracappa says.
Why would Casso lie? "To save himself, I would assume," says Caracappa. "But, why would he use me? I don't know."
Casso was, in fact, hoping to save himself, and reduce his sentence, when he first told his astonishing account to investigators 12 years ago. But prosecutors say they couldn’t charge Eppolito and Caracappa then because they couldn’t prove Casso's story. But now they have witnesses to many of the murders who corroborate what Casso had to say. Among them is Jimmy Hydell’s mother, who told investigators that the detectives came to her house looking for her son a few hours before he was abducted and killed, and a garage worker who told authorities where to dig up the body of another man Caracappa and Eppolito allegedly buried beneath a lot in Brooklyn.
The most brazen crime former Detectives Eppolito and Caracappa are accused of took place along New York City’s Belt Parkway. Allegedly in broad daylight, the two detectives pulled over a car driven by a mobster named Eddie Lino. They flashed their badges, and according to prosecutors, shot him dead.
"I gave them $75,000. They killed him, like, cowboy style. They pulled alongside of him. They shot him. They made him crash into the fence alongside the Belt Parkway on the service road. Right? Then Steve got out of the car, ran across the street and finished shooting him. Finished killing him in the car," Casso said during the 1998 interview.
It's a claim Caracappa denies. "I was a New York City detective for 23 years. We don't go around killing people. I did not kill Eddie Lino. I'm not a cowboy," he says.
Caracappa agrees that being on the police force doesn't automatically mean someone is a good guy and acknowledges that there have been members of the police force who have killed.
"So, that doesn't, you know, that's not a good answer for me to say, 'I didn't do it because I'm on the job,'" Bradley says.
"No, it's my answer. It's my answer because I have pride in myself, Mr. Bradley," Caracappa replies. "I wouldn't do something like that. Put my life in jeopardy. My family. Disgrace the badge. Disgrace the city. Take everything that I had worked for my whole life and throw it away? And, killed somebody in the street like a cowboy? That's not my style. It's not me."
"If you thought you wouldn't get caught?" Bradley asks.
"Get caught? Everybody gets caught. And, the person who did this is gonna get caught," says Caracappa.
Caracappa says he’s also speaking for his friend and co-defendant Louis Eppolito, who declined 60 Minutes' request for an interview.
"He’s not the monster the newspapers portrayed him to be," says Caracappa. "We’ll put up the evidence to show that we couldn’t have done these crimes. We just couldn’t have done 'em." But prosecutors say Stephen Caracappa left a paper trail - a key piece of evidence – proving he used his position to access police department computers andfunnel confidential information to Anthony Casso about the whereabouts of his enemies. One of them was a mobster named Nicholas Guido.
Investigators say Caracappa ran that name through his computer, mistakenly came up with an address for the wrong Nicholas Guido and a few weeks later, it led Casso to kill an innocent man. "I don’t remember running Nicholas Guido in the computer. But if they have a printout saying I did, I probably did. I ran countless names in the computer," says Caracappa.
So does Caracappa think Guido's murder was just a coincidence? "I don't know if it's a coincidence," he says. "But, if I did anything and I had to run a name, it's down on paper and it's documented why I did it…. And, who I did it for. And, I definitely didn't do it for any wise guy."
Stephen Caracappa’s lawyer, Ed Hayes, argues it would have been implausible for a first-grade detective like Caracappa to make such a rookie mistake. "If he had been looking for the right Nicky Guido, it would have been easy for him to find him," says Hayes. "It’s practically impossible to me to assume that he would have made this mistake. Because he's based his whole career on avoiding that kind of mistake, assuming you're going to kill people for money, you want to kill the right guy. Not the wrong guy. Otherwise you got to kill two people for the price of one, right?"
Maybe he was just sloppy. "Yeah. Maybe he made a mistake. Or maybe he didn't do it," says Hayes. "But in our system, you don't convict somebody on a maybe."
While that may be, prosecutors have also obtained information from a former top associate of Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso named Burton Kaplan, a convicted narcotics trafficker, who claims he personally paid detectives Caracappa and Eppolito when they committed murders for Casso. Ed Hayes says neither Casso nor Kaplan have any credibility.
"You have several individuals that even by criminal standards are revolting. And I think they saw this as an opportunity to make a plan, where they could get special treatment and get out of jail. And in fact, Burt Kaplan, who’s a drug dealer, a super large money launderer, has gotten out of jail because of making these accusations," says Hayes.
Stephen Caracappa says he knows he is being framed. And he says he has a good idea why he was implicated in the first place: his relationship with Louis Eppolito, who came from a family of mobsters, and wrote a book about it, titled "Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was The Mob." In the book, Eppolito brags about socializing with mobsters and torturing suspects when he was on the job.
Does Caracappa fear jurors might know of the book and lump him in by guilt of association? "It could be. But if you knew Louie Eppolito and you spoke to Louie Eppolito, and you spent any time with him, you would see he couldn't do that. The guy is gentle," says Caracappa. But there’s a separate case that paints a dark picture of Louis Eppolito, involving Barry Gibbs, who spent 19 years in prison for a murder prosecutors now say he didn’t commit. He was freed four months ago, after a judge ruled that Det. Eppolito, who investigated the crime, intimidated the only eyewitness in the case into falsely testifying against Gibbs.
"He is a corrupt cop, and he is no good, and that’s the end of it," says Gibbs. "He ruined my life. He could have done that to anybody. It just so happens it was me. He could have done it you. He could have done it to anybody sitting here."
That eyewitness who testified against Gibbs was a former Marine, Peter Mitchell. In 1986, Mitchell saw a man dumping a woman’s body along a road in Brooklyn. He gave a description of the suspect to Eppolito, who was on the scene investigating the murder, and while his description bore no resemblance to Barry Gibbs, Mitchell says Eppolito threatened to hurt him and his family, if he refused to pick Gibbs out of a police lineup and point the finger at him in court.
Mitchell admits he knew he was lying on the stand and that his testimony would land Gibbs in jail. "Yeah, but you know what? I don't want this cop after me," says Mitchell.
How could he do that? "How could I do that? My family was on the line here. And I, if I had to do it, I'll do it again," says Mitchell.
Mitchell says that if he hadn't fingered Barry Gibbs he would be dead.
As for Barry Gibbs, he would still be in prison today if prosecutors hadn’t stumbled across his case file last spring during a search of Louis Eppolito’s home. Eppolito has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing in this case, and claims he did nothing improper. The former detective made a brief statement to reporters recently about the 10 murder charges against him.
"I was a very highly decorated cop. I worked very hard my whole life and I just wanted people to know I’m not the person that they’re portraying me," he said.
Asked by a reporter if he was ever a bad cop, Eppolito replied, "Never in my life, never."
The question for the jury in this case, which goes to trial next month, is: did two decorated police officers cross the thin blue line and become hitmen for the mafia?
"You must know that if you get convicted on even one of these murder charges, you'll go down in history as one of the most corrupt cops in the history of the department," says Bradley. "That's true, Mr. Bradley, but I won't be convicted, because I didn't do this," replies Caracappa. "I won't, didn't do it. So I'm not gonna be convicted. I won't have that on my epitaph."
Courtesy of 60 Minutes
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
"Mafia" Cop Had a Mole
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Just months before being exposed as an alleged Mafia hit man, one of the accused mob cops bragged about a high-ranking NYPD member slipping him unauthorized identification under the table, feds say. Disgraced ex-Detective Louis Eppolito was caught on a wiretap earlier this year describing how he was given credentials that state he is an active New York cop, despite living in Las Vegas and having retired more than a decade ago, according to a letter filed by prosecutors last week. Eppolito, 57, claimed he was given the card by a prominent city cop, whom the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office did not identify.
Eppolito - who is accused of "routinely divulging sensitive law-enforcement information in exchange for money" - also boasted about how easily he could still access driver-registration records, thanks to his lasting ties with local cops. The comments were made public by the feds in a court document asking that the identities of jurors deciding Eppolito's fate be kept secret.
Eppolito and his alleged partner in crime, former Detective Stephen Caracappa, 63, are charged with handing over names of cooperating witnesses to the Luchese crime family - intelligence that was used to commit nine rubouts between 1986 and 1991. Caracappa is believed to have been the triggerman in one of the slayings.
Prosecutors say the two were on $4,000 retainer to jailed Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. "The defendants have demonstrated . . . a propensity to obstruct the fair working of the criminal justice system," prosecutor Robert Henoch wrote in his letter to Brooklyn federal court Judge Jack Weinstein.
"The history of selling information and using murder to obstruct criminal investigations is strong evidence for the need of an anonymous jury." If the judge decides their identities should not be revealed, the jurors would be escorted to and from the courthouse by federal marshals throughout the trial. "There's really no reason to have [an anonymous jury]," said Caracappa's lawyer, Ed Hayes, adding that he may try to block the government's request.
The trial is expected to get under way in February.
Thanks to Zach Haberman
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Just months before being exposed as an alleged Mafia hit man, one of the accused mob cops bragged about a high-ranking NYPD member slipping him unauthorized identification under the table, feds say. Disgraced ex-Detective Louis Eppolito was caught on a wiretap earlier this year describing how he was given credentials that state he is an active New York cop, despite living in Las Vegas and having retired more than a decade ago, according to a letter filed by prosecutors last week. Eppolito, 57, claimed he was given the card by a prominent city cop, whom the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office did not identify.
Eppolito - who is accused of "routinely divulging sensitive law-enforcement information in exchange for money" - also boasted about how easily he could still access driver-registration records, thanks to his lasting ties with local cops. The comments were made public by the feds in a court document asking that the identities of jurors deciding Eppolito's fate be kept secret.
Eppolito and his alleged partner in crime, former Detective Stephen Caracappa, 63, are charged with handing over names of cooperating witnesses to the Luchese crime family - intelligence that was used to commit nine rubouts between 1986 and 1991. Caracappa is believed to have been the triggerman in one of the slayings.
Prosecutors say the two were on $4,000 retainer to jailed Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. "The defendants have demonstrated . . . a propensity to obstruct the fair working of the criminal justice system," prosecutor Robert Henoch wrote in his letter to Brooklyn federal court Judge Jack Weinstein.
"The history of selling information and using murder to obstruct criminal investigations is strong evidence for the need of an anonymous jury." If the judge decides their identities should not be revealed, the jurors would be escorted to and from the courthouse by federal marshals throughout the trial. "There's really no reason to have [an anonymous jury]," said Caracappa's lawyer, Ed Hayes, adding that he may try to block the government's request.
The trial is expected to get under way in February.
Thanks to Zach Haberman
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
New charges for 'Mafia cops'
The "Mafia Cops" have something else to digest over Thanksgiving: a new version of the federal indictment accusing them of being hitmen for the mob. Brooklyn federal prosecutors Wednesday released a retooled indictment, their fourth version, in the racketeering charges against ex-NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa.
Eppolito and Caracappa already face a total of 10 homicide charges in the racketeering case that started with their arrest in March. The new indictment didn't add any new murder victims but did add two murder-for-hire allegations to cover the killings of Gambino mobster Edward Lino in 1990 and diamond dealer Israel Greenwald in 1986. The new charges also added a 1982 bribery allegation against Eppolito,56.
News of a new indictment angered defense attorney Edward Hayes who is representing Caracappa, 63. Hayes said the defense now has to revise motion papers, which already cost tens of thousands of dollars to prepare, because of the latest grand jury action. He thinks prosecutors are trying to delay the trial, now set for February. "This is their fourth try to make this case," said Hayes. "I think it is fair to ask if there are facts they want to put before the jury or whether they want to postpone it because they don't see a way to try the case." A spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorneys Office couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.
Caracappa and Eppolito are accused in the case of being hitmen for Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the now imprisoned former acting boss of the Lucchese crime family. Some of the murders took place while they were with the NYPD. Both defendants had been kept for a time in solitary confinement after their arrest in their home state of Nevada. But Brooklyn federal judge Jack B. Weinstein released them on house arrest with separate $5 million bail packages. Eppolito is living with relatives on Long Island while Caracappa is staying at his mother's house on Staten Island.
Weinstein has expressed concern that the original federal indictment has a serious statute of limitations problems. Generally, racketeering conspiracies like the kind Eppolito and Caracappa are charged with require some act to have been committed within five years of the time of indictment. The original indictment was filed in early March of this year.
The most recent homicide in the case was in 1991. However, prosecutors also originally said Eppolito and Caracappa took part in money laundering and a narcotics conspiracy in late 2004.
Challenging the indictment, the defense has claimed that the drug charges aren't related to the earlier Mafia-linked racketeering homicides and thus can't save the indictment from dismissal. After Weinstein also stated in court that he thought the case had a problem with the statute of limitations, prosecutors began revising the indictment to include crimes as late as October 2002. Prosecutors also made Eppolito and Caracappa the racketeering enterprise, instead of La Cosa Nostra. The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned next Wednesday.
Thanks to Anthony DeStefano
Eppolito and Caracappa already face a total of 10 homicide charges in the racketeering case that started with their arrest in March. The new indictment didn't add any new murder victims but did add two murder-for-hire allegations to cover the killings of Gambino mobster Edward Lino in 1990 and diamond dealer Israel Greenwald in 1986. The new charges also added a 1982 bribery allegation against Eppolito,56.
News of a new indictment angered defense attorney Edward Hayes who is representing Caracappa, 63. Hayes said the defense now has to revise motion papers, which already cost tens of thousands of dollars to prepare, because of the latest grand jury action. He thinks prosecutors are trying to delay the trial, now set for February. "This is their fourth try to make this case," said Hayes. "I think it is fair to ask if there are facts they want to put before the jury or whether they want to postpone it because they don't see a way to try the case." A spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorneys Office couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.
Caracappa and Eppolito are accused in the case of being hitmen for Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the now imprisoned former acting boss of the Lucchese crime family. Some of the murders took place while they were with the NYPD. Both defendants had been kept for a time in solitary confinement after their arrest in their home state of Nevada. But Brooklyn federal judge Jack B. Weinstein released them on house arrest with separate $5 million bail packages. Eppolito is living with relatives on Long Island while Caracappa is staying at his mother's house on Staten Island.
Weinstein has expressed concern that the original federal indictment has a serious statute of limitations problems. Generally, racketeering conspiracies like the kind Eppolito and Caracappa are charged with require some act to have been committed within five years of the time of indictment. The original indictment was filed in early March of this year.
The most recent homicide in the case was in 1991. However, prosecutors also originally said Eppolito and Caracappa took part in money laundering and a narcotics conspiracy in late 2004.
Challenging the indictment, the defense has claimed that the drug charges aren't related to the earlier Mafia-linked racketeering homicides and thus can't save the indictment from dismissal. After Weinstein also stated in court that he thought the case had a problem with the statute of limitations, prosecutors began revising the indictment to include crimes as late as October 2002. Prosecutors also made Eppolito and Caracappa the racketeering enterprise, instead of La Cosa Nostra. The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned next Wednesday.
Thanks to Anthony DeStefano
Thursday, November 03, 2005
OMERTA WANTED FROM 'MOB' LAWYERS
Friends of ours: John Gotti
Friend of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
The feds want lawyers for a pair of reputed mob cops to shut their yaps. Prosecutors from the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office say Bruce Cutler and Ed Hayes, who represent former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito, 57, and Stephen Caracappa, 63, have talked so much about the case publicly that finding unbiased jurors could be a problem. Readers will recall that Bruce Cutler is the defense attorney that represented John Gotti three times successfully before Gotti was finally imprisoned where he died behind bars.
Friend of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
The feds want lawyers for a pair of reputed mob cops to shut their yaps. Prosecutors from the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office say Bruce Cutler and Ed Hayes, who represent former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito, 57, and Stephen Caracappa, 63, have talked so much about the case publicly that finding unbiased jurors could be a problem. Readers will recall that Bruce Cutler is the defense attorney that represented John Gotti three times successfully before Gotti was finally imprisoned where he died behind bars.
Will DNA testing clear the "Mafia Cops"?
Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family, Luchese Crime Family, Edward "Eddie" Lino, Anthony "Gas Pipe" Casso
Friends of Mine: Louis Eppolito and Stephen Carappa
Ex-detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, accused of being hit men for the mob, are seeking to have DNA tests run on a watch found at the scene of one of their alleged gangland murders, sources familiar with the case told Newsday. Legal and law enforcement sources said the defense believes the tests might help to show that Eppolito and Caracappa had nothing to do with the murder and thus cast doubt about other elements of the prosecution's case.
"This might be so important that I think it is better I not say anything," said defense attorney Ed Hayes, who is representing Caracappa.
Among the 10 murders that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have accused the former cops of being involved in is the Nov. 6, 1990, killing of Gambino family captain Edward "Eddie" Lino. The slaying occurred by the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.
Lino was believed by investigators to have been one of a group of men involved in an unsuccessful attempt to kill former Luchese crime boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. It was Casso, federal investigators believe, who used Eppolito and Caracappa as alleged mob moles and assassins. Lino was killed after Eppolito and Caracappa followed him from his social club and forced him to pull over as he drove along the parkway, according to the federal charges.
Prosecutors recently turned over numerous pieces of evidence, including the investigative reports about Lino's murder, to defense attorneys. One of the documents indicated that a Pulsar watch was found at the Lino crime scene and that it contained some strands of brown human hair, said a lawyer familiar with the case but who asked not to be identified.
In a letter sent to federal prosecutors Tuesday, Hayes said he wanted to examine the watch and any diagrams, photos and test results related to it. Hayes noted in his letter that only fingerprint tests had been done on the watch and asked that "complete testing" be done. Though the Hayes letter didn't mention DNA tests, sources familiar with the case said defense attorneys believe DNA testing might show the hair strands were not from Caracappa or Eppolito. A law enforcement source, who also asked not to be identified, said it was unclear if the DNA that may be discovered from testing would be definitive about anything related to the case.
Thanks to ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO of Newsday
Friends of Mine: Louis Eppolito and Stephen Carappa
Ex-detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, accused of being hit men for the mob, are seeking to have DNA tests run on a watch found at the scene of one of their alleged gangland murders, sources familiar with the case told Newsday. Legal and law enforcement sources said the defense believes the tests might help to show that Eppolito and Caracappa had nothing to do with the murder and thus cast doubt about other elements of the prosecution's case.
"This might be so important that I think it is better I not say anything," said defense attorney Ed Hayes, who is representing Caracappa.
Among the 10 murders that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have accused the former cops of being involved in is the Nov. 6, 1990, killing of Gambino family captain Edward "Eddie" Lino. The slaying occurred by the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.
Lino was believed by investigators to have been one of a group of men involved in an unsuccessful attempt to kill former Luchese crime boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. It was Casso, federal investigators believe, who used Eppolito and Caracappa as alleged mob moles and assassins. Lino was killed after Eppolito and Caracappa followed him from his social club and forced him to pull over as he drove along the parkway, according to the federal charges.
Prosecutors recently turned over numerous pieces of evidence, including the investigative reports about Lino's murder, to defense attorneys. One of the documents indicated that a Pulsar watch was found at the Lino crime scene and that it contained some strands of brown human hair, said a lawyer familiar with the case but who asked not to be identified.
In a letter sent to federal prosecutors Tuesday, Hayes said he wanted to examine the watch and any diagrams, photos and test results related to it. Hayes noted in his letter that only fingerprint tests had been done on the watch and asked that "complete testing" be done. Though the Hayes letter didn't mention DNA tests, sources familiar with the case said defense attorneys believe DNA testing might show the hair strands were not from Caracappa or Eppolito. A law enforcement source, who also asked not to be identified, said it was unclear if the DNA that may be discovered from testing would be definitive about anything related to the case.
Thanks to ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO of Newsday
Sunday, October 09, 2005
"Mafia Cop" Livid Over Murder-Frame Accusation
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Embattled "Mafia cop" Louis Eppolito was "more upset" by accusations that he threatened a murder witness in order to send an innocent man to jail than over his federal indictment for participating in eight mob-related assassinations, his lawyer said yesterday.
"It cut to the core, angered and frustrated him more so than anything else," attorney Bruce Cutler said of Eppolito's reaction after reading yesterday's exclusive front-page account in The Post from ex-Marine Peter Mitchell.
Mitchell, a key witness in the 1986 murder of Virginia Robertson, told The Post that Eppolito ignored his descriptions of a paunchy white-haired suspect, and instead pounded away on him that Barry Gibbs, then a scruffy 38-year-old drug user, was the killer "he wanted to get."
Eppolito went so far as to threaten Mitchell that he would plant drugs in Mitchell's mother's home and then arrest her if he did not finger Gibbs, Mitchell told The Post. "Louie was so offended, it cut to his core that he would frame someone," Cutler said. "It was just not true."
Eppolito, the son of a Mafia capo, "was more upset with this accusation" than by the laundry list of federal charges brought against him and ex-NYPD Detective Stephen Caracappa — including accusations they raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the mob for leaking confidential NYPD information, personally killing a diamond dealer and facilitating the murders of seven other wise guys and associates.
Thanks to Murray Weiss
Embattled "Mafia cop" Louis Eppolito was "more upset" by accusations that he threatened a murder witness in order to send an innocent man to jail than over his federal indictment for participating in eight mob-related assassinations, his lawyer said yesterday.
"It cut to the core, angered and frustrated him more so than anything else," attorney Bruce Cutler said of Eppolito's reaction after reading yesterday's exclusive front-page account in The Post from ex-Marine Peter Mitchell.
Mitchell, a key witness in the 1986 murder of Virginia Robertson, told The Post that Eppolito ignored his descriptions of a paunchy white-haired suspect, and instead pounded away on him that Barry Gibbs, then a scruffy 38-year-old drug user, was the killer "he wanted to get."
Eppolito went so far as to threaten Mitchell that he would plant drugs in Mitchell's mother's home and then arrest her if he did not finger Gibbs, Mitchell told The Post. "Louie was so offended, it cut to his core that he would frame someone," Cutler said. "It was just not true."
Eppolito, the son of a Mafia capo, "was more upset with this accusation" than by the laundry list of federal charges brought against him and ex-NYPD Detective Stephen Caracappa — including accusations they raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the mob for leaking confidential NYPD information, personally killing a diamond dealer and facilitating the murders of seven other wise guys and associates.
Thanks to Murray Weiss
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Mafia Cops Lawyers Demanding Witness Information #NewYork #MafiaCops
Lawyers for the "Mafia Cops" are pressing federal prosecutors to disclose whether a key government witness was a secret informant at a time when he allegedly helped engineer some mob murders.
Edward Hayes, who is representing ex-NYPD detective Stephen Caracappa, said in a letter to prosecutors that he has learned that the informant was providing information to the government much earlier than the defense has been led to believe
Caracappa, 63, and Louis Eppolito, 56, have been indicted on charges they worked as moles for the mob while they were detectives in the 1980s and '90s, and played roles in several hits. Court records and law enforcement sources have indicated that convicted drug trafficker Burton Kaplan is the main source of information used to get the two former cops indicted.
Citing his own sources and a recent Vanity Fair article, Hayes said in his Sept. 1 letter to prosecutors that Kaplan was providing information to the government well before the 2005 indictment against his client. If true, said Hayes, Kaplan might have himself exploited his relationship with investigators to glean information useful for the mob hits.
"Obviously, if he had a relationship with some law enforcement agency and failed to disclose it: 1. that relationship could be a source of information used to kill these individuals, and 2: failure to disclose it could show that he felt guilty or desired concealment of the relationship," Hayes said in his letter to Brooklyn Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Henoch.
Kaplan, whose daughter is a city criminal court judge, was convicted in 1998 on charges he trafficked in several tons of marijuana. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison. He apparently began cooperating against the former detectives in 2004. Kaplan reportedly was the intermediary between former acting Lucchese crime boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso and Caracappa and Eppolito. Government records also revealed that Kaplan had ties to high-ranking members of the Bonanno crime family. He apparently began cooperating in early 2004.
According to an article in Vanity Fair last month that cited two retired police detectives and an FBI agent, all unidentified, Kaplan never disclosed his status as a confidential informant in the 1980s. The magazine stated that the FBI agent later changed his story, claiming to have never used Kaplan as an informant.
Hayes asked Henoch to provide him with information about "the circumstances in which Mr. Kaplan first began providing information of any sort to any government representatives, particularly federal agents." Hayes also wants to know if Kaplan was an informant when he was arrested in the 1990s.
Henoch couldn't be reached for comment.
Thanks to Anthony M. Destefano
Edward Hayes, who is representing ex-NYPD detective Stephen Caracappa, said in a letter to prosecutors that he has learned that the informant was providing information to the government much earlier than the defense has been led to believe
Caracappa, 63, and Louis Eppolito, 56, have been indicted on charges they worked as moles for the mob while they were detectives in the 1980s and '90s, and played roles in several hits. Court records and law enforcement sources have indicated that convicted drug trafficker Burton Kaplan is the main source of information used to get the two former cops indicted.
Citing his own sources and a recent Vanity Fair article, Hayes said in his Sept. 1 letter to prosecutors that Kaplan was providing information to the government well before the 2005 indictment against his client. If true, said Hayes, Kaplan might have himself exploited his relationship with investigators to glean information useful for the mob hits.
"Obviously, if he had a relationship with some law enforcement agency and failed to disclose it: 1. that relationship could be a source of information used to kill these individuals, and 2: failure to disclose it could show that he felt guilty or desired concealment of the relationship," Hayes said in his letter to Brooklyn Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Henoch.
Kaplan, whose daughter is a city criminal court judge, was convicted in 1998 on charges he trafficked in several tons of marijuana. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison. He apparently began cooperating against the former detectives in 2004. Kaplan reportedly was the intermediary between former acting Lucchese crime boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso and Caracappa and Eppolito. Government records also revealed that Kaplan had ties to high-ranking members of the Bonanno crime family. He apparently began cooperating in early 2004.
According to an article in Vanity Fair last month that cited two retired police detectives and an FBI agent, all unidentified, Kaplan never disclosed his status as a confidential informant in the 1980s. The magazine stated that the FBI agent later changed his story, claiming to have never used Kaplan as an informant.
Hayes asked Henoch to provide him with information about "the circumstances in which Mr. Kaplan first began providing information of any sort to any government representatives, particularly federal agents." Hayes also wants to know if Kaplan was an informant when he was arrested in the 1990s.
Henoch couldn't be reached for comment.
Thanks to Anthony M. Destefano
Monday, August 15, 2005
Did Cops Double as Mob Hit Men? #MafiaCops
In Las Vegas, the players on the Strip know that a safe bet for celebrity sightings and traditional Italian food — a Caesar’s and Osso Bucco— is Piero’s.
It was supposed to be a quiet night at the restaurant one Wednesday in March, but it turned out to be anything but. As manager Linda Kajor started greeting two regulars strolling in for an early dinner, out of nowhere, guns were drawn all around. "Out of nowhere, the people at the end of the bar came running forward with guns drawn," recalls Kajor. "The front doors open up, and cops come running in. There are cops everywhere running after these two men that were standing there. We were very scared.”
The two patrons were suddenly thrown up against the wall and cuffed by federal agents. The pair were former New York City detectives about to be charged, astonishingly, as hit men for the mob. Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa weren’t just accused of being crooked, violent, or on the take — they were accused of being “mafia cops” and taking part in nine murders on behalf of an organized crime family, starting as far back as the 1980s.
U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf called it a “stunning betrayal of their shields, their colleagues and the citizens they were sworn to protect.”
A plotline worthy of a grade-D mob movie
It was supposed to be a quiet night at the restaurant one Wednesday in March, but it turned out to be anything but. As manager Linda Kajor started greeting two regulars strolling in for an early dinner, out of nowhere, guns were drawn all around. "Out of nowhere, the people at the end of the bar came running forward with guns drawn," recalls Kajor. "The front doors open up, and cops come running in. There are cops everywhere running after these two men that were standing there. We were very scared.”
The two patrons were suddenly thrown up against the wall and cuffed by federal agents. The pair were former New York City detectives about to be charged, astonishingly, as hit men for the mob. Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa weren’t just accused of being crooked, violent, or on the take — they were accused of being “mafia cops” and taking part in nine murders on behalf of an organized crime family, starting as far back as the 1980s.
U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf called it a “stunning betrayal of their shields, their colleagues and the citizens they were sworn to protect.”
A plotline worthy of a grade-D mob movie
It sounds like the stale script from a hack screenwriter with its storyline of bent cops, played by the usual over-the-top suspects. “This is a story of an organized crime person who joins the police department and then participates in organized hits and compromises investigations,” describes veteran police reporter Murray Weiss, who now works for New York’s Daily News. “People go ‘Ah, piece of junky pulp fiction.’ But it’s reality.”
Eppolito and Caracappa have both declared their innocence all along. Is this cops-gone-wild story mainly outrageous accusations made by convicted gangsters looking out for their own skin?
Caracappa’s defense attorney, Ed Hayes, thinks so. “Nobody gave these guys a fair shot,” says Hayes.
According to the prosecutor’s version however, the charges against the two former detectives are indefensible — and the most extreme acts took place on New York City’s busy Belt Parkway.
The former cops are accused of pulling over a small time hood in an unmarked police car in 1990 and killing him on behalf of another mobster who allegedly paid them $65,000 for the hit. “It’s still shocking to think that two cops would actually pull the trigger and kill someone,” says Newsday reporter Rocco Parascandola.
Even New Yorkers who thought they’d heard it all were flabbergasted. “Never has there been allegations like this. Never has there been policemen going out with their badges and killing people systematically and working with organized crime,” says Weiss.
A 'Dirty Harry' type and his low-key partner
Eppolito and Caracappa have both declared their innocence all along. Is this cops-gone-wild story mainly outrageous accusations made by convicted gangsters looking out for their own skin?
Caracappa’s defense attorney, Ed Hayes, thinks so. “Nobody gave these guys a fair shot,” says Hayes.
According to the prosecutor’s version however, the charges against the two former detectives are indefensible — and the most extreme acts took place on New York City’s busy Belt Parkway.
The former cops are accused of pulling over a small time hood in an unmarked police car in 1990 and killing him on behalf of another mobster who allegedly paid them $65,000 for the hit. “It’s still shocking to think that two cops would actually pull the trigger and kill someone,” says Newsday reporter Rocco Parascandola.
Even New Yorkers who thought they’d heard it all were flabbergasted. “Never has there been allegations like this. Never has there been policemen going out with their badges and killing people systematically and working with organized crime,” says Weiss.
A 'Dirty Harry' type and his low-key partner
Stephen Caracappa worked in a major case squad tracking homicides inside organized crime circles. He had access to confidential information on mob informants. Slight and intense, Caracappa was as low-key as his friend was swaggering.
Louis Eppolito, a gold chain-wearing, pinky-ringed, decorated street detective from Brooklyn made his name taking down the toughest of thugs.
Eppolito
, a former body builder, liked reading about his exploits the day after a big arrest. He seemed to relish the notoriety and the deference that came his way as the son of a mobbed-up family. “He just loved being the ‘Dirty Harry’ guy,” says Weiss. “His uncle’s name was ‘Jimmy the Clam’ and these were tough gangsters at seriously important levels of organized crime.”
After he retired from the NYPD, Eppolito wrote a self-congratulatory autobiography, “Mafia Cop.” The book was about walking the straight line as a detective from a family background steeped in organized crime. But was he a straight cop? In 1984, he’d been the target of an internal police investigation, suspected of leaking confidential documents to a known mob figure. He was cleared of the charges, but the rumors about Eppolito followed him all the way to his retirement in 1990.
After he turned in his badge, he even toyed with his reputation and got a few bit parts playing Mafiosos in movies like “Goodfellas.”
The case against the detectives
According to charges filed by the U.S. attorney, Eppolito was not only playing a movie mobster, he was one. And so was his quiet friend Stephen Caracappa. Authorities believe that starting in the mid-1980s, when both were New York detectives, they were also on the payroll of a crime family underboss who supposedly paid the cops $4,000 a month to be his “crystal balls.”
The two cops each brought something to the table, as Weiss sees it: “One guy is in bed with the mob and comes from a mob family, and the other guy is quiet and subdued, and winds up in a unit where he has access to all this confidential information involving organized crime.”
The files Caracappa had access would have been vital: “It’s priceless. You know who your enemies are and to find out who might be the witness against you… [You know] who’s starting to cooperate against the police and you can eliminate them. That by definition eliminates the case against you,” says Weiss.
Prosecutors believe that mobster Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso of the Luchese crime family paid the two to feed him confidential police information.
Casso particularly wanted to find out who’d tried to whack him in 1986. According to the indictment, the two detectives not only gave “Gaspipe” details about who was behind the botched hit, but were actually hands-on in helping execute his revenge. “They literally went and got that person and drove him, took him off the streets, threw him in a trunk and brought him to Casso,” describes Weiss of the allegations. But in the early ‘90s, after more than 20 years on the force, Eppolito and Caracappa retired to homes in a gated community in Las Vegas. They became across-the-street neighbors.
Back east, meanwhile, authorities had caught up with “Gaspipe” Casso who admitted involvement in 36 murders. The mobster began offering lurid stories about the two cops.
Still, the case against them didn’t gain traction until a team of investigators started going through old computer records and made links that, they believed, showed Caracappa had been pulling up files on mobsters who shortly thereafter ended up dead. The computer searches Caracappa made supposedly left virtual fingerprints.
In addition to computer file evidence, it’s believed that prosecutors also have a retired businessman, currently serving a 27-year prison sentence on mafia drug charges, prepared to testify that he was the middleman between “Gaspipe” Casso and the two detectives.
In a case built on decades-old stories told by accusations from convicted mobsters, the defense team is expected to attack the credibility of the government’s key witnesses.
“Anthony ‘Gaspipe’ Casso was the underboss of a crime family,” says Hayes, Caracappa’s defense attorney. “He is a raving lunatic. Nobody believed Casso. He, in fact, was so unbelievable the other gangsters didn’t believe him.”
In July, a federal judge said the evidence was stale and “not strong” — even questioning whether a statute of limitations may apply to the some of the charges. The prosecution did not contest the judge’s decision to release Caracappa and Eppolito on $5 million bonds.
The pair have been placed under house arrest with electronic ankle bracelets until their trial scheduled for September. They have both pleaded not guilty.
Thanks to Dennis Murphy
Louis Eppolito, a gold chain-wearing, pinky-ringed, decorated street detective from Brooklyn made his name taking down the toughest of thugs.
Eppolito
, a former body builder, liked reading about his exploits the day after a big arrest. He seemed to relish the notoriety and the deference that came his way as the son of a mobbed-up family. “He just loved being the ‘Dirty Harry’ guy,” says Weiss. “His uncle’s name was ‘Jimmy the Clam’ and these were tough gangsters at seriously important levels of organized crime.”After he retired from the NYPD, Eppolito wrote a self-congratulatory autobiography, “Mafia Cop.” The book was about walking the straight line as a detective from a family background steeped in organized crime. But was he a straight cop? In 1984, he’d been the target of an internal police investigation, suspected of leaking confidential documents to a known mob figure. He was cleared of the charges, but the rumors about Eppolito followed him all the way to his retirement in 1990.
After he turned in his badge, he even toyed with his reputation and got a few bit parts playing Mafiosos in movies like “Goodfellas.”
The case against the detectives
According to charges filed by the U.S. attorney, Eppolito was not only playing a movie mobster, he was one. And so was his quiet friend Stephen Caracappa. Authorities believe that starting in the mid-1980s, when both were New York detectives, they were also on the payroll of a crime family underboss who supposedly paid the cops $4,000 a month to be his “crystal balls.”
The two cops each brought something to the table, as Weiss sees it: “One guy is in bed with the mob and comes from a mob family, and the other guy is quiet and subdued, and winds up in a unit where he has access to all this confidential information involving organized crime.”
The files Caracappa had access would have been vital: “It’s priceless. You know who your enemies are and to find out who might be the witness against you… [You know] who’s starting to cooperate against the police and you can eliminate them. That by definition eliminates the case against you,” says Weiss.
Prosecutors believe that mobster Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso of the Luchese crime family paid the two to feed him confidential police information.
Casso particularly wanted to find out who’d tried to whack him in 1986. According to the indictment, the two detectives not only gave “Gaspipe” details about who was behind the botched hit, but were actually hands-on in helping execute his revenge. “They literally went and got that person and drove him, took him off the streets, threw him in a trunk and brought him to Casso,” describes Weiss of the allegations. But in the early ‘90s, after more than 20 years on the force, Eppolito and Caracappa retired to homes in a gated community in Las Vegas. They became across-the-street neighbors.
Back east, meanwhile, authorities had caught up with “Gaspipe” Casso who admitted involvement in 36 murders. The mobster began offering lurid stories about the two cops.
Still, the case against them didn’t gain traction until a team of investigators started going through old computer records and made links that, they believed, showed Caracappa had been pulling up files on mobsters who shortly thereafter ended up dead. The computer searches Caracappa made supposedly left virtual fingerprints.
In addition to computer file evidence, it’s believed that prosecutors also have a retired businessman, currently serving a 27-year prison sentence on mafia drug charges, prepared to testify that he was the middleman between “Gaspipe” Casso and the two detectives.
In a case built on decades-old stories told by accusations from convicted mobsters, the defense team is expected to attack the credibility of the government’s key witnesses.
“Anthony ‘Gaspipe’ Casso was the underboss of a crime family,” says Hayes, Caracappa’s defense attorney. “He is a raving lunatic. Nobody believed Casso. He, in fact, was so unbelievable the other gangsters didn’t believe him.”
In July, a federal judge said the evidence was stale and “not strong” — even questioning whether a statute of limitations may apply to the some of the charges. The prosecution did not contest the judge’s decision to release Caracappa and Eppolito on $5 million bonds.
The pair have been placed under house arrest with electronic ankle bracelets until their trial scheduled for September. They have both pleaded not guilty.
Thanks to Dennis Murphy
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