Friends of ours: Colombo Crime Family, Gregory Scarpa Sr., Victor J. Orena
R. Lindley DeVecchio once stood atop the New York office of the F.B.I. as a legendary Mafia hunter, a storied agent who helped break the back of the mob in the celebrated Commission Case. Now he stands accused of helping the mob commit murders, charged in a state indictment last month with feeding lethal secrets to a captain of organized crime.
Mr. DeVecchio has been hailed as a hero and tarnished as a scourge, and yet there was a moment in a Pennsylvania parking lot 30 years ago that almost caused him to be neither.
In 1976, as a young F.B.I. agent, Mr. DeVecchio sold old handguns to undercover officers, who later sought to charge him with a felony. Had he been convicted, the case might have led to prison or his dismissal as an agent. But Mr. DeVecchio, who said he acted legally and to benefit a widow, was neither jailed nor fired.
The case against him was ultimately discarded without an indictment by officials at the highest levels of the Justice Department, a decision that the federal prosecutor in the original case says was largely made by the top aide to the deputy United States attorney general, a 32-year-old attorney named Rudolph W. Giuliani.
"Rudy expressed no other reason not to prosecute the guy except the guy was a cop," said the former prosecutor, Daniel M. Clements, who is now in private practice. "And he didn't want to embarrass the bureau."
Mr. Clements said last week that he recalled in detail his meetings 30 years ago with Mr. Giuliani, as well as his frustration that the case was dismissed as unimportant.
Mr. Giuliani, who built a reputation in part by prosecuting corrupt police officers, said through a spokeswoman, Sunny Mindel, that he had no recollection of the DeVecchio case.
Whatever the level, if any, of Mr. Giuliani's role, the case stands as a long-buried piece of law enforcement history, a fork in the road that, if traversed differently, may have led to an entirely different set of consequences. Indeed, from the vantage point of 1976, the gun case may have seemed a minor matter. There was no way to know that seven years later, according to the state indictment filed last month in Brooklyn, Mr. DeVecchio would step across the line, helping a Mafia informant kill at least four people. But if Mr. DeVecchio had been pursued in 1976, would he have risen to lead the F.B.I. squad that hunted the Colombo crime family? Would he have had a role in some of the government's watershed cases against the mob? Would he now stand accused of second-degree murder?
His lawyer, Douglas E. Grover, said federal officials were right to never charge his client in the gun case because they were merely antiques that were peddled at a gun show. But he acknowledged that had that case been successfully pursued Mr. DeVecchio would probably have lost his job. "It also means that they may made not have made the Commission Case," he said, referring to a 1986 trial at which top organized crime leaders in New York City were convicted.
The gun case began in early 1976 when Mr. DeVecchio traveled from New York to King of Prussia, Pa., to sell a Nazi-era Luger at the Valley Forge Gun Show, which promotes itself as "a gun show in the truest American tradition."
He was looking, according to his testimony in a later case, to sell the weapons "for the benefit of the widow" to whom they belonged.
Without a license, he moved through the stalls of the firearms bazaar, and was soon approached by Michael Flax, an undercover agent with the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Mr. Flax said. Mr. Flax's job was to troll the show in plainclothes looking for such illicit deals. That year alone, he said, several people he caught similarly selling guns without paperwork went to prison. "I was usually like, 'Gee I'd like to get this gun,' " he said in an interview from his retirement home in San Diego. ' "Do we have to go through all the paperwork?' "
Mr. Flax recalled that he bought the Luger in a parking lot outside the show. Over several weeks, he said, he pursued an investigation of Mr. DeVecchio in which a second agent secretly recorded the F.B.I. man selling another gun. He said that Mr. DeVecchio, at one point, gave him a phone number at which he might be reached. It was, he said, an office of the New York F.B.I.
A few weeks later, Mr. Flax brought the case to Mr. Clements, then a young federal prosecutor in Baltimore. Mr. Clements is now in private practice and active in the Democratic Party, having given money to candidates like John Kerry and Al Gore.
"Flax comes to me saying, 'You're not going to believe this,' " Mr. Clements said last week. " 'I have an F.B.I. agent selling guns illegally.' "
A few months later, Mr. Clements said he told the F.B.I. as a courtesy that he was investigating one of its agents. A few weeks passed, he said, with discussions back and forth with F.B.I. officials in Maryland and in Washington. "The next person I heard from," he went on, "was Rudolph Giuliani."
Mr. Giuliani was, at that point, an aide to Harold Tyler, the deputy attorney general, who reviewed such cases. Mr. Giuliani had joined his staff in 1975 after serving in the United States attorney's office in Manhattan where he had helped direct the prosecution in the Prince of the City police corruption case.
Over several weeks, Mr. Clements said, Mr. Giuliani asked him to write a pair of memoranda on the case in which he noted that Mr. DeVecchio had sold the guns without the proper paperwork, a crime, Mr. Clements said, for which he thought there was sufficient evidence to prosecute. Mr. Clements said he attended a pair of meetings about the case with Mr. Giuliani, including one in Mr. Giuliani's office also attended by Mr. Tyler and Jervis Finney, the United States attorney in Maryland who was then Mr. Clements's boss.
Mr. Finney, now the chief lawyer for the governor of Maryland, said last week he has no recollection of the meeting. But Mr. Clements produced a datebook he said he had saved that listed a meeting with Mr. Giuliani in June 1976.
At that meeting and a subsequent meeting in October, Mr. Clements said Mr. Giuliani repeated his desire not to prosecute the case, saying the guns were old and the sale of them without paperwork did not warrant prosecution.
Judge Tyler, who Mr. Clements said was at the second meeting, died last year. The bottom line, after both meetings, Mr. Clements said, was that the case would be dropped.
In the ensuing years, Mr. DeVecchio rose to lead the F.B.I.'s special unit that investigates the Colombo crime family, a position in which he had success in part because of his relationship with a captain in the family, Gregory Scarpa Sr., who became his informant.
The closeness of that relationship ultimately led to a two-year inquiry of Mr. DeVecchio by the F.B.I. that ended in 1996 with the decision to bring no charges against him. But Mr. DeVecchio soon retired.
In 1997, the old gun case briefly resurfaced. At a federal appeals hearing in Brooklyn. Mr. DeVecchio was called as a witness by a gangster, Victor J. Orena, who was trying to win his freedom by suggesting that Mr. DeVecchio was a corrupt agent who had lied about the facts in his case. Under questioning by Gerald Shargel, Mr. Orena's lawyer, Mr. DeVecchio acknowledged selling the guns to the federal agents.
Mr. Shargel then went on to ask him: "Do you remember agents of the A.T.F. reporting to the F.B.I. and Rudolph Giuliani — not yet the mayor — that you had lied to those agents who questioned you, that when confronted with the crimes that you committed, you gave them false exculpatory statements?"
Mr. DeVecchio said that he did not.
In the new indictment, announced last month by Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, Mr. DeVecchio is accused of helping Mr. Scarpa commit at least four murders in the 1980's and early 1990's in exchange for weekly payments. Most of the victims had been talking to the authorities, prosecutors said, and thus were a threat to Mr. Scarpa.
When Mr. Clements read of the indictment, he said he was surprised. At the same time, he recalled the words that he and Mr. Flax had swapped, years ago, when the gun case, as he put it, "went away."
It was an old-time adage on those who break the law, a general theory of recidivist crime. "If someone's a bad actor, we'll get him again," he remembered telling Mr. Flax.
Thanks to Alan Feuer
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Don Mafia: the relentless pursuit of prominence
I will occasionally feature articles on hip-hop/rap stars who are looking to create an image based upon a particular mafiosa from the past. It is always interesting to examine the mafia's influence on pop-culture and vice versa.
It may well be that the image of the Mafia don, romanticised both in media (The Sopranos) and in real life (the flashy rise and fall of NYC Mafioso John Gotti) is having a deeper than suspected impact here.
Along comes the artist Don Mafia, formerly known as Gringo (you may remember the track Slam Bam), whose Mafia House production has gained attention recently through his link with top DJ Beenie Man.
Well the DJ is now seeking his career further and has wholly adopted the Mafia ethos -with he says, an explanation. "The name really speaks to a 'Mafia mentality' which you need in this business, that is, you have to be relentless in establishing your thing and going for what you know is right," Mafia explained.
Since last February, the 'musical Mafioso' has been on a schedule -mostly recordings - that would 'rub out' lesser beings, but the Don asserts that he cannot afford to be too comfortable. "I have to keep working. Is long time I'm in this business now, and I understand - through all the drama and the fight I been through - what I need to do at this stage."
The same applies in his lyrics, which he says, have matured from his early days as a "counteraction specialist" "I not in the counteraction thing again. A guy want to hate me, then him go ahead. I have to come different now and just focus on my thing and the company, cause no matter where else I've been or whatever else I been doing, I always have to come back to music."
Regarding his better-known partner, Don Mafia has nothing but praise. "I know Beeneie Man from King Jammys'. He saw him work a show one day at Fort Clarence and from that the association start." The association has seen the Don writing hit tunes for the Doctor, beginning with Straight Prison and including many more.
Among his own trove of current singles is Born A Man. The former Apositolic churchgoer and member of his devotional team at Decarteret College is also getting busier on the performing front, appearing at shows big and small around the island.
"The reason why I can't sit still is that I always thinking of new things, I always have new ideas. As a Mafia you always have to be a few steps ahead of the game."
It may well be that the image of the Mafia don, romanticised both in media (The Sopranos) and in real life (the flashy rise and fall of NYC Mafioso John Gotti) is having a deeper than suspected impact here.
Along comes the artist Don Mafia, formerly known as Gringo (you may remember the track Slam Bam), whose Mafia House production has gained attention recently through his link with top DJ Beenie Man.
Well the DJ is now seeking his career further and has wholly adopted the Mafia ethos -with he says, an explanation. "The name really speaks to a 'Mafia mentality' which you need in this business, that is, you have to be relentless in establishing your thing and going for what you know is right," Mafia explained.
Since last February, the 'musical Mafioso' has been on a schedule -mostly recordings - that would 'rub out' lesser beings, but the Don asserts that he cannot afford to be too comfortable. "I have to keep working. Is long time I'm in this business now, and I understand - through all the drama and the fight I been through - what I need to do at this stage."
The same applies in his lyrics, which he says, have matured from his early days as a "counteraction specialist" "I not in the counteraction thing again. A guy want to hate me, then him go ahead. I have to come different now and just focus on my thing and the company, cause no matter where else I've been or whatever else I been doing, I always have to come back to music."
Regarding his better-known partner, Don Mafia has nothing but praise. "I know Beeneie Man from King Jammys'. He saw him work a show one day at Fort Clarence and from that the association start." The association has seen the Don writing hit tunes for the Doctor, beginning with Straight Prison and including many more.
Among his own trove of current singles is Born A Man. The former Apositolic churchgoer and member of his devotional team at Decarteret College is also getting busier on the performing front, appearing at shows big and small around the island.
"The reason why I can't sit still is that I always thinking of new things, I always have new ideas. As a Mafia you always have to be a few steps ahead of the game."
Giannoulias Laying Low After Bank Loan To Mobster - Family Bank Loaned Money To Operator Of Call Girl Ring
Friends of ours: Michael Giorango
Questions about loans to a convicted mobster are dominating the race for Illinois state treasurer. Alexi Giannoulias is laying low while studying the millions in loans his family’s bank made to the operator of a national call girl ring.
Christine Radogno is the Republican candidate for state treasurer. A veteran of the General Assembly, she faults her Democratic opponent for the confusing twists and turns he's taken trying to explain how he came to do business with a mob-connected ex-convict.
"You need someone who, one, knows what's going on, and, two, has the experience to handle the job," she said. "And I think both of those things are lacking based on what we've seen from the latest press release."
Alexi Giannoulias won a hotly contested Democratic primary for state treasurer last month by campaigning, in part, on the financial expertise he said he gained as a top banking executive.
Both before and after the election, Giannoulias claimed to know little or nothing about $15.4 million in loans his family's privately owned Broadway Bank granted to Michael Giorango, who's been convicted of running gambling and prostitution rings.
Of those mob-connected enterprises, Giannoulias said in a prepared statement: "What they did was wrong...inexcusable. If I had known...I do not believe...we would have approved those loans. (But) there was nothing illegal. I admit...I mishandled some questions."
His most prominent supporter, Sen. Barack Obama, wants answers, but is still on board. "I continue to believe Alexi is a person of good character and his experience will serve him in good stead as treasurer," Obama said.
Sen. Obama told CBS 2's Mike Flannery that he's advised Giannoulias that he needs to be sure the public statements he makes are accurate.
An aide to the candidate said Giannoulias is going to avoid making any public statements for the next week and will study his bank's loan portfolio, something Sen. Radogno finds very strange, since Giannoulias supposedly has been overseeing those very same loans for sometime now.
Thanks to Mike Flannery
Questions about loans to a convicted mobster are dominating the race for Illinois state treasurer. Alexi Giannoulias is laying low while studying the millions in loans his family’s bank made to the operator of a national call girl ring.
Christine Radogno is the Republican candidate for state treasurer. A veteran of the General Assembly, she faults her Democratic opponent for the confusing twists and turns he's taken trying to explain how he came to do business with a mob-connected ex-convict.
"You need someone who, one, knows what's going on, and, two, has the experience to handle the job," she said. "And I think both of those things are lacking based on what we've seen from the latest press release."
Alexi Giannoulias won a hotly contested Democratic primary for state treasurer last month by campaigning, in part, on the financial expertise he said he gained as a top banking executive.
Both before and after the election, Giannoulias claimed to know little or nothing about $15.4 million in loans his family's privately owned Broadway Bank granted to Michael Giorango, who's been convicted of running gambling and prostitution rings.
Of those mob-connected enterprises, Giannoulias said in a prepared statement: "What they did was wrong...inexcusable. If I had known...I do not believe...we would have approved those loans. (But) there was nothing illegal. I admit...I mishandled some questions."
His most prominent supporter, Sen. Barack Obama, wants answers, but is still on board. "I continue to believe Alexi is a person of good character and his experience will serve him in good stead as treasurer," Obama said.
Sen. Obama told CBS 2's Mike Flannery that he's advised Giannoulias that he needs to be sure the public statements he makes are accurate.
An aide to the candidate said Giannoulias is going to avoid making any public statements for the next week and will study his bank's loan portfolio, something Sen. Radogno finds very strange, since Giannoulias supposedly has been overseeing those very same loans for sometime now.
Thanks to Mike Flannery
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Mandalay Hopes "Mafia Cop" Produces Another Hit
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Mandalay Pictures has turned last week's national news headlines into a project titled "Mafia Cop", a film based on the life of highly decorated NYPD detective Louis Eppolito, who was found guilty, along with Steven Caracappa, of participating in eight murders, two attempted murders, one murder conspiracy, money laundering, obstruction of justice and drug distribution.
Mandalay has Eppolito's life rights as well as film rights to the book the highly decorated imprisoned detective penned with Bob Drury about his life . The case is being labelled as one of the worst police corruption scandals in New York's history and detailed accounts on the stand showed the men often used their power to commit crimes while feeding police intelligence to Mafia underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Eppolito also has more than a dozen acting credits on his resume including Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas". Scribe Dan Gordon ("The Hurricane") who attended the three-week trial will pen the screenplay
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Mandalay Pictures has turned last week's national news headlines into a project titled "Mafia Cop", a film based on the life of highly decorated NYPD detective Louis Eppolito, who was found guilty, along with Steven Caracappa, of participating in eight murders, two attempted murders, one murder conspiracy, money laundering, obstruction of justice and drug distribution.
Mandalay has Eppolito's life rights as well as film rights to the book the highly decorated imprisoned detective penned with Bob Drury about his life . The case is being labelled as one of the worst police corruption scandals in New York's history and detailed accounts on the stand showed the men often used their power to commit crimes while feeding police intelligence to Mafia underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Eppolito also has more than a dozen acting credits on his resume including Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas". Scribe Dan Gordon ("The Hurricane") who attended the three-week trial will pen the screenplay
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Two Decades Later, Family Sees Justice in New York 'Mafia Cops' Case
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Gambino Crime Family, Jimmy Hydell, Eddie Lino
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
In 1986, an unassuming jeweler named Israel Greenwald was secretly shot dead inside a Brooklyn garage and buried on the spot. His family had no clue he was executed _ or that two police detectives doubling as hit men for the Mafia were involved.
The family finally found a measure of peace on Thursday while on hand for guilty verdicts against Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa, the so-called "Mafia Cops". "Finally, justice has been served," Greenwald's 28-year-old daughter, Lea, told reporters outside a Brooklyn courtroom.
The convictions - which came two decades after the ex-detectives committed their first murder on orders from Luchese underboss Anthony ''Gaspipe'' Casso - closed perhaps the most astonishing police corruption case in city history.
"There has never been, in the history of the NYPD, an officer convicted of being a hit man for the mob," said Tom Reppetto, co-author of "American Mafia" and "NYPD," a department history.
"There's cases of police misconduct, but going to work for organized crime? Wow." The federal jury in Brooklyn deliberated for two days in the case against Eppolito and Caracappa, who spent a combined 44 years on the force and once worked as partners. The pair, who were immediately jailed after the verdict, face up to life in prison.
Neither defendant betrayed any emotion during the 10 minutes where the jury forewoman replied "proven" 70 times to the racketeering acts.
Eppolito, 57, whose father was a member of the Gambino crime family, and Caracappa, 64, were respected city detectives who moonlighted as hired killers for Casso between 1986 and 1990. In two of the slayings, they used their police credentials to make traffic stops that ended with the driver killed.
In another instance, the pair kidnapped a man suspected in an attempted mob hit against Casso and turned him over to the underboss. Casso, a remorseless mobster responsible for 36 slayings, reportedly tortured and killed Jimmy Hydell in September 1986.
The most shocking murder involved bad information provided by the detectives about another suspect in the Casso murder attempt. The tip led to the mistaken-identity murder of an innocent man killed as his mother washed the dishes following a Christmas Day family dinner.
U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein immediately revoked the defendants' $5 million bail pending their May 22 sentencing.
Hayes and Eppolito's attorney, Bruce Cutler, said they would appeal. "It's an appearance of justice, but it's not justice," Cutler told reporters outside court.
Prosecutors charged that the two used their positions as crime fighters to aid the crime family - at a price of $4,000 a month. Their salary increased when the detectives personally handled the killing, authorities said; they earned $65,000 for the slaying of mobster Eddie Lino during a phony traffic stop.
It was one of two slayings where the pair was directly involved.
A witness testified that Caracappa was present during the February 1986 slaying of Greenwald, who was allegedly cooperating with federal authorities. Jurors heard testimony from a parking lot attendant who described publicly for the first time how Eppolito stood guard while he was forced to dig a grave for the victim or face a bullet himself.
Another key prosecution witness was Burton Kaplan, an acknowledged drug dealer who spent four days on the stand linking the pair to an assortment of murders between 1986 and 1990. Kaplan testified that he served as a middleman between Casso and the detectives.
Before the defendants were led away to jail, Eppolito calmly removed his tie, belt and a gold chain from his bulky frame and handed them to one of his daughters. Left behindon the defense table were wrapping paper from Caracappa's Life Savers, a blank verdict sheet, some court transcripts and a fortune from a fortune cookie.
It read: "Wisdom is the principal thing."
Thanks to Tom Hays
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
In 1986, an unassuming jeweler named Israel Greenwald was secretly shot dead inside a Brooklyn garage and buried on the spot. His family had no clue he was executed _ or that two police detectives doubling as hit men for the Mafia were involved.
The family finally found a measure of peace on Thursday while on hand for guilty verdicts against Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa, the so-called "Mafia Cops". "Finally, justice has been served," Greenwald's 28-year-old daughter, Lea, told reporters outside a Brooklyn courtroom.
The convictions - which came two decades after the ex-detectives committed their first murder on orders from Luchese underboss Anthony ''Gaspipe'' Casso - closed perhaps the most astonishing police corruption case in city history.
"There has never been, in the history of the NYPD, an officer convicted of being a hit man for the mob," said Tom Reppetto, co-author of "American Mafia" and "NYPD," a department history.
"There's cases of police misconduct, but going to work for organized crime? Wow." The federal jury in Brooklyn deliberated for two days in the case against Eppolito and Caracappa, who spent a combined 44 years on the force and once worked as partners. The pair, who were immediately jailed after the verdict, face up to life in prison.
Neither defendant betrayed any emotion during the 10 minutes where the jury forewoman replied "proven" 70 times to the racketeering acts.
Eppolito, 57, whose father was a member of the Gambino crime family, and Caracappa, 64, were respected city detectives who moonlighted as hired killers for Casso between 1986 and 1990. In two of the slayings, they used their police credentials to make traffic stops that ended with the driver killed.
In another instance, the pair kidnapped a man suspected in an attempted mob hit against Casso and turned him over to the underboss. Casso, a remorseless mobster responsible for 36 slayings, reportedly tortured and killed Jimmy Hydell in September 1986.
The most shocking murder involved bad information provided by the detectives about another suspect in the Casso murder attempt. The tip led to the mistaken-identity murder of an innocent man killed as his mother washed the dishes following a Christmas Day family dinner.
U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein immediately revoked the defendants' $5 million bail pending their May 22 sentencing.
Hayes and Eppolito's attorney, Bruce Cutler, said they would appeal. "It's an appearance of justice, but it's not justice," Cutler told reporters outside court.
Prosecutors charged that the two used their positions as crime fighters to aid the crime family - at a price of $4,000 a month. Their salary increased when the detectives personally handled the killing, authorities said; they earned $65,000 for the slaying of mobster Eddie Lino during a phony traffic stop.
It was one of two slayings where the pair was directly involved.
A witness testified that Caracappa was present during the February 1986 slaying of Greenwald, who was allegedly cooperating with federal authorities. Jurors heard testimony from a parking lot attendant who described publicly for the first time how Eppolito stood guard while he was forced to dig a grave for the victim or face a bullet himself.
Another key prosecution witness was Burton Kaplan, an acknowledged drug dealer who spent four days on the stand linking the pair to an assortment of murders between 1986 and 1990. Kaplan testified that he served as a middleman between Casso and the detectives.
Before the defendants were led away to jail, Eppolito calmly removed his tie, belt and a gold chain from his bulky frame and handed them to one of his daughters. Left behindon the defense table were wrapping paper from Caracappa's Life Savers, a blank verdict sheet, some court transcripts and a fortune from a fortune cookie.
It read: "Wisdom is the principal thing."
Thanks to Tom Hays
Monday, April 10, 2006
Stephen Caracappa
Stephen Caracappa is former policemen from New York City who retired in 1980. In 2005, Caracappa and his former partner, Louis Eppolito, were charged with carrying out various crimes, including murder, on behalf of the Lucchese Crime Family during the 1980's while they were still NYPD detectives. The media has dubbed the pair the "Mafia Cops".
Both men, who were lifelong friends, moved to Las Vegas following their retirement.
In 1994, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, a member of the Lucchese crime family, became an informant and first brought the authority's attention to Caracappa and Eppolito. Amongst other things he alleged that, in 1986, the two policemen kidnapped and murdered a member of the Gambino family named James Hydell on the orders of rival mobsters.
After a long investigation, both Caracappa and Eppolito were arrested in March 2005 and charged with racketeering, obstruction of justice and eight counts of murder, including that of James Hydell. They are also accused of conspiring to murder Sammy Gravano, the famous informant who helped put John Gotti behind bars.
Caracappa and Eppolito were convicted in April of 2006. On June 30th, the Judge in that case threw out the murder convictions and granted the two a new trial on money laundering and drug charges.
Chicago Syndicate Articles with Stephen Caracappa
Mafia Cops Request Bail
Mafia Detectives Risks Mafia Cops Case
Mafia Cops Judge to Rule on Bail After Vacation Cruise
Mother of Mafia Cops Victim Pleads with Mayor Bloomberg
Convictions Tossed in "Mafia Cops" Case
Judge Throws Out Murder Conviction in Mafia Cops Case
Mafia Cop Trial Defense Was "Excellent" Judge Says
Mafia Cop Testifies It's True He's a Liar
Yet Another Chapter in Mafia Cops Case
Private Eye Who Investigated Mafia Cops Attacked
A Family Torn Apart by Mafia Cops
Bruce Lost His Bite
Last Shot for "Mafia Cops": Lawyers Did It
The Badge Still Shines
Mafia Cops to Face Life Term
Mafia Cops Face Life in Prison at Sentencing
Kin of "Mafia Cops" Victims Sue NYPD
Mop Cop Will Make Case for Poor Defense
Judge: Basis for Appeal in 'Mafia Cops' Trial
It's Splitsville!
Mob Cop's Daughter Begs Judge: Free Dad
Mafia Cop's Bizarre Nondefense
After Conviction "Mafia Cop" Insists It was a Perfect Frame
Mafia Cop Raped Me, Gal Says
Mandalay Hopes "Mafia Cop" Produces Another Hit
Two Decades Later, Family Sees Justice in New York 'Mafia Cops' Case
He's Got Courage of Clients' Convictions
NYPD Detectives Convicted of Mob Murders
"Mafia Cops" Convicted of Murder
Defense in "Mafia Cops" Trial Closes in a Blaze of Name-Calling
Closing Arguments Begin in Colorful 'Mafia Cops' Trial
Key Witness to be Recalled in Trial of 2 'Mafia Cops'
Judge Denies Mistrial for "Mafia Cops"
In Mob Trial, a Spotlight on a Rogue
Time for "Mafia Cop" to Honor his Family
Man Says "Mafia Cops" Ordered Him to Dig Grave
'Mafia cops' trial has new sidebar
Mama Gets Her shot at 'Mob cops'
Drug Dealer Testifies That He Met Accused 'Mafia Cops' in Cemetery
Police Accused of Mafia Ties Head to Trial
Trial Begins of NY Cops Charged as Mafia Hit Men
Real Dons Steal Sopranos Limelight
Bad Cops First, Then Mob Cops?
Dramatic mob trials still fill the seats
Detectives Who Broke "Mafia Cops" Case Won't Testify At Trial
'Mafia Cops' prosecutors drop two murders
Murdered man's mother files $150M suit against city, 'Mafia Cops'
Alleged mob cop's wife arrested for tax evasion
Alleged Mafia Cop Speaks Out
"Mafia" Cop Had a Mole
New charges for 'Mafia cops'
OMERTA WANTED FROM 'MOB' LAWYERS
Will DNA testing clear the "Mafia Cops"?
'MAFIA COP' LIVID OVER MURDER-FRAME ACCUSATION
'Mafia Cops' lawyers demanding witness information
Did cops double as mob hit men?
He's Got Courage of Clients' Convictions
Friends of mine: Stephen Caracappa, Louis Eppolito
It was barely an hour after the jury came back in Brooklyn, carrying a verdict no defense attorney ever wants to hear. And Edward Hayes obviously wasn't enjoying this one.
His client, Stephen Caracappa, was one of the alleged "Mafia cops. " Caracappa had just been convicted in a racketeering conspiracy that included carrying out multiple hits for the mob.
"You lose a big case, and you feel awful," Hayes was saying, back now at his law office in midtown. "And then you win big cases, and you feel great. That's the life I've chosen. I worked like an animal. I did a good job for the guy. In this line of work, you're supposed to put the government to the test. I feel like I did that. Unfortunately, the jury convicted anyway. "
Even the greatest lawyers lose cases. If a lawyer says he's never lost one, don't even think of hiring him. He can't be trusted. He's already lying to you. But that's not Ed Hayes' way. He'll face the music, all of it, even on the toughest of days. And he wasn't hiding now.
It's a story and an ethos he's revealed in an eye-popping tell-all, "Mouthpiece: A Life in - and Sometimes Just Outside - the Law." From an abusive upbringing in working-class Queens. To a mind-expanding time at the University of Virginia and Columbia Law. To a stint as a homicide prosecutor in the Bronx. To a law career representing the likes of Lizzie Grubman, Sean Combs, Daniel Libeskind and the Andy Warhol estate. Ed Hayes is the quintessential behind-the-scenes New York power player and the first-call mop-up man in 10021.
At one time or another, he has been a source for most of the newspaper columnists in New York - and a lawyer for at least half of them, now including Jared Paul Stern, the alleged "Page Six" extortionist at the New York Post. He's a rare combination: fop and tough guy, well-connected and street-smart, a genuine Irish knock-around who can still sit down to dinner with Anna Wintour and Si Newhouse. Of course, his pal Tom Wolfe wrote the introduction to the book. But here was the ultimate test for Hayes, who's been touted and toasted plenty in the nine weeks since "Mouthpiece" came out. Would he still be a stand-up guy when the chips were down? Or would he suddenly slink away and hide?
I'm here to report that Ed Hayes did not slink. In fact, he sounded downright gracious, given all that had just occurred.
"You had very good prosecutors," he said of the Brooklyn-based team that pursued Caracappa and co-defendant Louis Eppolito. "The case was very well-investigated. They came up with stuff, like my client took a day off the day someone was murdered. And the jurors totally believed the main government witness, Burt Kaplan," an undeniable bad guy who ratted out the two ex-cops.
Just as ardently - even more so - Hayes stood by his freshly convicted client. "I really don't believe he did it, and I'm happy to represent him," Hayes said. "I never saw any indication that he would do this sort of thing. And where was the motive? You understand what I'm saying? He didn't need money. His wife made a very good living. He made a good living. Why take this kind of risk? I didn't see it. "
What Hayes did see was another stand-up guy. "He's got a lovely wife," the "Mouthpiece" lawyer said of his latest client. "He's very close to her. It's gonna be pretty grim.
"He is a very strong guy who takes very good care of his emotions. He's very careful about that. He showed some emotion after the verdict. But he is a very strong guy. He said, 'Eddie, don't worry. It'll be OK. I said to myself, 'Jesus, this guy is worried about me, and last night is his last free night.
Thanks to Ellis Henican
It was barely an hour after the jury came back in Brooklyn, carrying a verdict no defense attorney ever wants to hear. And Edward Hayes obviously wasn't enjoying this one.
His client, Stephen Caracappa, was one of the alleged "Mafia cops. " Caracappa had just been convicted in a racketeering conspiracy that included carrying out multiple hits for the mob.
"You lose a big case, and you feel awful," Hayes was saying, back now at his law office in midtown. "And then you win big cases, and you feel great. That's the life I've chosen. I worked like an animal. I did a good job for the guy. In this line of work, you're supposed to put the government to the test. I feel like I did that. Unfortunately, the jury convicted anyway. "
Even the greatest lawyers lose cases. If a lawyer says he's never lost one, don't even think of hiring him. He can't be trusted. He's already lying to you. But that's not Ed Hayes' way. He'll face the music, all of it, even on the toughest of days. And he wasn't hiding now.
It's a story and an ethos he's revealed in an eye-popping tell-all, "Mouthpiece: A Life in - and Sometimes Just Outside - the Law." From an abusive upbringing in working-class Queens. To a mind-expanding time at the University of Virginia and Columbia Law. To a stint as a homicide prosecutor in the Bronx. To a law career representing the likes of Lizzie Grubman, Sean Combs, Daniel Libeskind and the Andy Warhol estate. Ed Hayes is the quintessential behind-the-scenes New York power player and the first-call mop-up man in 10021.
At one time or another, he has been a source for most of the newspaper columnists in New York - and a lawyer for at least half of them, now including Jared Paul Stern, the alleged "Page Six" extortionist at the New York Post. He's a rare combination: fop and tough guy, well-connected and street-smart, a genuine Irish knock-around who can still sit down to dinner with Anna Wintour and Si Newhouse. Of course, his pal Tom Wolfe wrote the introduction to the book. But here was the ultimate test for Hayes, who's been touted and toasted plenty in the nine weeks since "Mouthpiece" came out. Would he still be a stand-up guy when the chips were down? Or would he suddenly slink away and hide?
I'm here to report that Ed Hayes did not slink. In fact, he sounded downright gracious, given all that had just occurred.
"You had very good prosecutors," he said of the Brooklyn-based team that pursued Caracappa and co-defendant Louis Eppolito. "The case was very well-investigated. They came up with stuff, like my client took a day off the day someone was murdered. And the jurors totally believed the main government witness, Burt Kaplan," an undeniable bad guy who ratted out the two ex-cops.
Just as ardently - even more so - Hayes stood by his freshly convicted client. "I really don't believe he did it, and I'm happy to represent him," Hayes said. "I never saw any indication that he would do this sort of thing. And where was the motive? You understand what I'm saying? He didn't need money. His wife made a very good living. He made a good living. Why take this kind of risk? I didn't see it. "
What Hayes did see was another stand-up guy. "He's got a lovely wife," the "Mouthpiece" lawyer said of his latest client. "He's very close to her. It's gonna be pretty grim.
"He is a very strong guy who takes very good care of his emotions. He's very careful about that. He showed some emotion after the verdict. But he is a very strong guy. He said, 'Eddie, don't worry. It'll be OK. I said to myself, 'Jesus, this guy is worried about me, and last night is his last free night.
Thanks to Ellis Henican
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Louis Eppolito
Louis Eppolito is former policemen from New York City who retired in 1980. In 2005, Eppolito and his former partner, Stephen Caracappa, were charged with carrying out various crimes, including murder, on behalf of the Lucchese Crime Family during the 1980's while they were still NYPD detectives.
Both men, who were lifelong friends, moved to Las Vegas following their retirement.
During his retirement, Eppoltio had a minor career as an actor, with small roles in movies including Predator 2 and the gangster film Goodfellas. Some of Eppolito's family members had been in the Mafia, including his father who was with the Gambino Crime Family, and, in 1992, he wrote a book, "Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob" in which he spoke of his attempts to avoid being dragged into the criminal life.
In 1994, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, a member of the Lucchese crime family, became an informant and first brought the authority's attention to Eppolito and Caracappa. Amongst other things he alleged that, in 1986, the two policemen kidnapped and murdered a member of the Gambino family named James Hydell on the orders of rival mobsters.
After a long investigation, both Eppolito and Caracappa were arrested in March 2005 and charged with racketeering, obstruction of justice and eight counts of murder, including that of James Hydell. They are also accused of conspiring to murder Sammy Gravano, the famous informant who helped put John Gotti behind bars.
Eppolito and Caracappa were convicted in April of 2006. On June 30th, the Judge in that case threw out the murder convictions and granted the two a new trial on money laundering and drug charges.
Chicago Syndicate Articles with Louis Eppolito
Mafia Cops Request Bail
Mafia Detectives Risks Mafia Cops Case
Mafia Cops Judge to Rule on Bail After Vacation Cruise
Mother of Mafia Cops Victim Pleads with Mayor Bloomberg
Convictions Tossed in "Mafia Cops" Case
Judge Throws Out Murder Conviction in Mafia Cops Case
Mafia Cop Trial Defense Was "Excellent" Judge Says
Mafia Cop Testifies It's True He's a Liar
Yet Another Chapter in Mafia Cops Case
Private Eye Who Investigated Mafia Cops Attacked
A Family Torn Apart by Mafia Cops
Bruce Lost His Bite
Last Shot for "Mafia Cops": Lawyers Did It
The Badge Still Shines
Mafia Cops to Face Life Term
Mafia Cops Face Life in Prison at Sentencing
Kin of "Mafia Cops" Victims Sue NYPD
After a Trial, The Tables are Turned on a Defense Lawyer
Mop Cop Will Make Case for Poor Defense
Judge: Basis for Appeal in 'Mafia Cops' Trial
It's Splitsville!
Mob Cop's Daughter Begs Judge: Free Dad
Mafia Cop's Bizarre Nondefense
After Conviction "Mafia Cop" Insists It was a Perfect Frame
Mafia Cop Raped Me, Gal Says
Mandalay Hopes "Mafia Cop" Produces Another Hit
Two Decades Later, Family Sees Justice in New York 'Mafia Cops' Case
He's Got Courage of Clients' Convictions
NYPD Detectives Convicted of Mob Murders
"Mafia Cops" Convicted of Murder
Defense in "Mafia Cops" Trial Closes in a Blaze of Name-Calling
Closing Arguments Begin in Colorful 'Mafia Cops' Trial
Key Witness to be Recalled in Trial of 2 'Mafia Cops'
Judge Denies Mistrial for "Mafia Cops"
In Mob Trial, a Spotlight on a Rogue
Time for "Mafia Cop" to Honor his Family
Man Says "Mafia Cops" Ordered Him to Dig Grave
'Mafia cops' trial has new sidebar
Mama Gets Her shot at 'Mob cops'
Drug Dealer Testifies That He Met Accused 'Mafia Cops' in Cemetery
Police Accused of Mafia Ties Head to Trial
Trial Begins of NY Cops Charged as Mafia Hit Men
Real Dons Steal Sopranos Limelight
Bad Cops First, Then Mob Cops?
Dramatic mob trials still fill the seats
Detectives Who Broke "Mafia Cops" Case Won't Testify At Trial
'Mafia Cops' prosecutors drop two murders
Murdered man's mother files $150M suit against city, 'Mafia Cops'
Alleged mob cop's wife arrested for tax evasion
Alleged Mafia Cop Speaks Out
"Mafia" Cop Had a Mole
New charges for 'Mafia cops'
OMERTA WANTED FROM 'MOB' LAWYERS
Will DNA testing clear the "Mafia Cops"?
'MAFIA COP' LIVID OVER MURDER-FRAME ACCUSATION
'Mafia Cops' lawyers demanding witness information
Did cops double as mob hit men?
Anti-Mafia Judge and Thriller Writer: the Double Life of Gianrico Carofiglio
The La Motta Chair in Italian Studies at Seton Hall University cordially invites you to a book signing and presentation for "Involuntary Witness," an exciting new thriller by Gianrico Carofiglio, Tuesday, April 25, 2006 at 5:30 PM at Casa Italiana (133 Fairview Avenue, South Orange, New Jersey). Admission is free and open to the public. Reservations a must.
With a compelling prosecutorial style, Carofiglio writes crisp, ironical novels that are as much love stories and philosophical treatises as they are legal thrillers. The characters of "local" criminals are depicted with brisk, sparing prose that recalls Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck as well as such contemporary mystery writers as Lawrence Block and Joe R. Lansdale.
The featured presentation, Involuntary Witness, is not only a perfectly paced legal thriller, it is also a powerful attack on racism. When a Senegalese pedlar, Abdou Thiam, is accused of kidnapping and murdering a nine-year-old boy, Francesco Rubino, it looks as though the verdict is a foregone conclusion. The boy disappeared one afternoon while playing soccer on his own in front of his grandparents' villa in the popular seaside resort of Monopoli, to the south of Bari. Two days later his body was found down a well, twelve miles north, in the countryside near Polignano. The local police have gathered the evidence and rounded up some witnesses, including a local barman who says he saw the pedlar at the scene. All fingers seem to point to Abdou Thiam. Defense lawyer Guido Guerrieri is called in to fight this hopeless case and he soon realizes he has a mammoth task on his hands. Faced with small-town racism fueled by recent immigration from Africa, Guido attempts to exploit the esoteric workings of the Italian courts. Gradually he finds a way through the judicial process, and bit by bit he cleverly turns the case in his favor.
A bestseller in Italy, Involuntary Witness has won several important literary awards, including Marisa Rusconi, Rhegium Julii and Fortunato Seminara prizes.
Gianrico Carofiglio, born in 1961, is an anti-Mafia judge in the southern Italian city of Bari. He has been responsible for some of the most important indictments in the region involving organized crime, political corruption and the traffic in human beings. Involuntary Witness is his debut novel and is now the basis for a television series in Italy.
This presentation is the first of a mini-series dedicated to the "Italian Mystery", in collaboration with The Italian Cultural Institute in New York City, The Vice-Consulate of Italy for New Jersey, Seton Hall University (The La Motta Chair Lecture Series), Casa Italiana in South Orange and The Center for Italian and Italian-American Culture
Friday, April 07, 2006
NYPD Detectives Convicted of Mob Murders
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, John Gotti, Gambino Crime Family, Jimmy Hydell, Nicholas Guido
Friends of mine: Loui Eppolito, Steven Caracappa
Two highly decorated former detectives were convicted Thursday of moonlighting as hitmen for the mob in one of the most sensational cases of police corruption in New York history.
Louis Eppolito, 57, and Steven Caracappa, 64, could get life in prison for their roles in eight murders committed between 1986 and 1990 while they were simultaneously on the payroll of both the NYPD and Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Federal prosecutor Daniel Wenner described the case as "the bloodiest, most violent betrayal of the badge this city has ever seen." Prosecutors said the two men carried out two hits themselves — in one case after pulling a mobster over in a phony traffic stop — and delivered up some of the other victims to the Mafia to be killed.
The defendants rubbed their faces and stared at the federal jury upon hearing the verdict, reached after two days of deliberations. Eppolito's family wept. The defendants' $5 million bail was revoked and they were led off to jail to await sentencing May 22.
The men's lawyers said they will appeal. "It's an appearance of justice, but it's not justice," said Bruce Cutler, who once represented John Gotti and put on a thundering defense of the two former officers, claiming the government's mob witnesses were lying to save their necks.
Prosecutors said the two used their law enforcement positions to help the Mafia at a price of $4,000 per month — more if they personally handled a killing. They earned $65,000 for the phony traffic stop slaying, prosecutors said. The two officers also supplied Casso with inside information on law enforcement interest in the mob, prosecutors said. Casso was said to have referred to the two men as his "crystal ball."
They were convicted of charges that included racketeering conspiracy, witness tampering, witness retaliation and obstruction of justice.
Caracappa, who retired in 1992, helped establish the city police department's unit for Mafia murder investigations. Eppolito, the son of a Gambino crime family member, was a much-praised street cop, although there were suggestions that some of his arrests resulted from tips from mobsters.
In his autobiography, Mafia Cop, he portrayed himself as an honest cop from a crooked family. Eppolito also played a bit part in the mob movie GoodFellas. After retiring in 1990, he unsuccessfully tried his hand at Hollywood scriptwriting.
The former detectives, who retired to homes on the same block in Las Vegas, insisted on their innocence from the time of their arrests in March 2005. But neither took the stand at their trial.
The key prosecution witness was Burton Kaplan, a drug dealer who spent four days on the stand linking the pair to an assortment of murders. Kaplan testified that he served as middleman between Casso and the detectives.
Casso, known as one of the most brutal mobsters in the city, is suspected of involvement in 36 murders himself. Both sides considered calling him as a witness but ultimately decided Casso came with too much baggage.
According to testimony, the detectives "arrested" a mobster named Jimmy Hydell in 1986, but instead delivered him to Casso for torture and execution.
That same year, the pair furnished the underboss with information on where to find Nicholas Guido, a mobster involved in a planned hit on Casso. Their inaccurate tip led to an innocent man with the same name, who was killed after Christmas dinner at his mother's house.
Friends of mine: Loui Eppolito, Steven Caracappa
Two highly decorated former detectives were convicted Thursday of moonlighting as hitmen for the mob in one of the most sensational cases of police corruption in New York history.
Louis Eppolito, 57, and Steven Caracappa, 64, could get life in prison for their roles in eight murders committed between 1986 and 1990 while they were simultaneously on the payroll of both the NYPD and Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Federal prosecutor Daniel Wenner described the case as "the bloodiest, most violent betrayal of the badge this city has ever seen." Prosecutors said the two men carried out two hits themselves — in one case after pulling a mobster over in a phony traffic stop — and delivered up some of the other victims to the Mafia to be killed.
The defendants rubbed their faces and stared at the federal jury upon hearing the verdict, reached after two days of deliberations. Eppolito's family wept. The defendants' $5 million bail was revoked and they were led off to jail to await sentencing May 22.
The men's lawyers said they will appeal. "It's an appearance of justice, but it's not justice," said Bruce Cutler, who once represented John Gotti and put on a thundering defense of the two former officers, claiming the government's mob witnesses were lying to save their necks.
Prosecutors said the two used their law enforcement positions to help the Mafia at a price of $4,000 per month — more if they personally handled a killing. They earned $65,000 for the phony traffic stop slaying, prosecutors said. The two officers also supplied Casso with inside information on law enforcement interest in the mob, prosecutors said. Casso was said to have referred to the two men as his "crystal ball."
They were convicted of charges that included racketeering conspiracy, witness tampering, witness retaliation and obstruction of justice.
Caracappa, who retired in 1992, helped establish the city police department's unit for Mafia murder investigations. Eppolito, the son of a Gambino crime family member, was a much-praised street cop, although there were suggestions that some of his arrests resulted from tips from mobsters.
In his autobiography, Mafia Cop, he portrayed himself as an honest cop from a crooked family. Eppolito also played a bit part in the mob movie GoodFellas. After retiring in 1990, he unsuccessfully tried his hand at Hollywood scriptwriting.
The former detectives, who retired to homes on the same block in Las Vegas, insisted on their innocence from the time of their arrests in March 2005. But neither took the stand at their trial.
The key prosecution witness was Burton Kaplan, a drug dealer who spent four days on the stand linking the pair to an assortment of murders. Kaplan testified that he served as middleman between Casso and the detectives.
Casso, known as one of the most brutal mobsters in the city, is suspected of involvement in 36 murders himself. Both sides considered calling him as a witness but ultimately decided Casso came with too much baggage.
According to testimony, the detectives "arrested" a mobster named Jimmy Hydell in 1986, but instead delivered him to Casso for torture and execution.
That same year, the pair furnished the underboss with information on where to find Nicholas Guido, a mobster involved in a planned hit on Casso. Their inaccurate tip led to an innocent man with the same name, who was killed after Christmas dinner at his mother's house.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
"Mafia Cops" Convicted of Murder
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Gambino Crime Family, Eddie Lino, Nicholas Guido, Jimmy Hydell
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Steven Caracappa
Two decorated former New York City police detectives were convicted Thursday of murder while on the payroll of a Mafia underboss in one of the most astounding police corruption cases in city history.
The federal jury deliberated for two days in the case against Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa, who spent a combined 44 years on the force and once worked as partners.
They face up to life in prison.
Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were accused of leading a double life for years: respected city detectives who moonlighted as hired killers for Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Wenner described the case against the so-called "Mafia cops" as "the bloodiest, most violent betrayal of the badge this city has ever seen."
The defendants showed no visible reaction, while Eppolito's family wept as the verdict was read.
The men were accused in eight murders, with prosecutors charging that the two used their positions as crime fighters to aid the crime family -- at a price of $4,000 a month.
Their salary increased when the detectives personally handled the killing, authorities said; they earned $65,000 for the slaying of a mobster during a phony traffic stop.
Casso also referred to the pair as his "crystal ball," providing inside information on law enforcement interest in the mob world, authorities said. Caracappa, who retired in 1992, helped establish the city police department's office for Mafia murder probes.
Eppolito, the son of a Gambino crime family member, was a much-praised street cop -- although there were suggestions that some of his arrests followed tips provided by mobsters. The contrast between his police work and his "family" life was detailed in his autobiography, "Mafia Cop."
Eppolito also played a bit part in the classic mob movie "GoodFellas." After retiring in 1990, he unsuccessfully tried his hand at Hollywood script writing.
Since their March 2005 arrests, the men have said they are innocent. But neither one took the stand to refute charges in the trial that began March 13.
The key prosecution witness was Burton Kaplan, an acknowledged drug dealer who spent four days on the stand linking the pair to an assortment of murders between 1986 and 1990. Kaplan testified that he served as middleman between Casso and the detectives.
Casso, known as one of the most brutal mobsters in the city, was reportedly involved in 36 murders himself.
Both sides considered calling him as a witness, but ultimately decided Casso came with too much baggage -- even after he wrote a letter from prison insisting the detectives were innocent of several crimes.
The details of the alleged killing spree were chilling. The detectives allegedly "arrested" a mobster named Jimmy Hydell in 1986, but instead delivered him to Casso for torture and execution.
That same year, the pair allegedly furnished the underboss with information to locate Nicholas Guido, a mobster involved in a planned hit on Casso. Their inaccurate tip led to the slaying of an innocent man who was having Christmas dinner at his mother's house.
The detectives also were charged with killing Gambino family member Eddie Lino during what began as a routine traffic stop, and finished with Caracappa allegedly shooting the mobster.
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Steven Caracappa
Two decorated former New York City police detectives were convicted Thursday of murder while on the payroll of a Mafia underboss in one of the most astounding police corruption cases in city history.
The federal jury deliberated for two days in the case against Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa, who spent a combined 44 years on the force and once worked as partners.
They face up to life in prison.
Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were accused of leading a double life for years: respected city detectives who moonlighted as hired killers for Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Wenner described the case against the so-called "Mafia cops" as "the bloodiest, most violent betrayal of the badge this city has ever seen."
The defendants showed no visible reaction, while Eppolito's family wept as the verdict was read.
The men were accused in eight murders, with prosecutors charging that the two used their positions as crime fighters to aid the crime family -- at a price of $4,000 a month.
Their salary increased when the detectives personally handled the killing, authorities said; they earned $65,000 for the slaying of a mobster during a phony traffic stop.
Casso also referred to the pair as his "crystal ball," providing inside information on law enforcement interest in the mob world, authorities said. Caracappa, who retired in 1992, helped establish the city police department's office for Mafia murder probes.
Eppolito, the son of a Gambino crime family member, was a much-praised street cop -- although there were suggestions that some of his arrests followed tips provided by mobsters. The contrast between his police work and his "family" life was detailed in his autobiography, "Mafia Cop."
Eppolito also played a bit part in the classic mob movie "GoodFellas." After retiring in 1990, he unsuccessfully tried his hand at Hollywood script writing.
Since their March 2005 arrests, the men have said they are innocent. But neither one took the stand to refute charges in the trial that began March 13.
The key prosecution witness was Burton Kaplan, an acknowledged drug dealer who spent four days on the stand linking the pair to an assortment of murders between 1986 and 1990. Kaplan testified that he served as middleman between Casso and the detectives.
Casso, known as one of the most brutal mobsters in the city, was reportedly involved in 36 murders himself.
Both sides considered calling him as a witness, but ultimately decided Casso came with too much baggage -- even after he wrote a letter from prison insisting the detectives were innocent of several crimes.
The details of the alleged killing spree were chilling. The detectives allegedly "arrested" a mobster named Jimmy Hydell in 1986, but instead delivered him to Casso for torture and execution.
That same year, the pair allegedly furnished the underboss with information to locate Nicholas Guido, a mobster involved in a planned hit on Casso. Their inaccurate tip led to the slaying of an innocent man who was having Christmas dinner at his mother's house.
The detectives also were charged with killing Gambino family member Eddie Lino during what began as a routine traffic stop, and finished with Caracappa allegedly shooting the mobster.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Defense in "Mafia Cops" Trial Closes in a Blaze of Name-Calling
Friends of ours: Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
After three weeks of testimony about gunshot wounds and buried bodies, about capos and whispered orders, the defense in the "Mafia cops" trial rested Tuesday morning with the image of a gnome.
"Franzone is a gnome," attorney Bruce Cutler said of a key government witness against his client, a retired New York City Police detective named Louis Eppolito. "A gnome," he said, "is defined as one of a race of dwarf-like creatures who lives underground and guards treasure hoards…. He's a creep and a lowlife and a liar."
It was a fitting end to a trial that has provided a three-week tour through Brooklyn's criminal underworld. Eppolito and his onetime partner, Stephen Caracappa, who retired from the force in the early 1990s, are accused of assisting a Luchese crime family underboss and participating in killings and racketeering.
Jurors will begin deliberations in the case today. Eppolito and Caracappa face the possibility of life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutor Daniel Wenner has called the case "one of the bloodiest and most violent betrayals of the badge this city has ever seen."
With little physical evidence, the government has built its case on the testimony of a series of shady figures — made men, felons, errand boys, stool pigeons — who testified that the two cops crossed over into their world.
The government's star witness was Burton Kaplan, 72, who is serving a 27-year sentence for drug dealing. Kaplan — a querulous, arthritic man — described himself as so ill-equipped for violence that when he was asked to ferry a corpse to Connecticut, he was "scared to death" and trembled the whole way.
Kaplan, a Jew, knew he could never be a made man, but he was well-connected. He introduced Eppolito and Caracappa to Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, a Luchese underboss who began paying them a $4,000-a-month retainer to pass on police intelligence, Kaplan testified.
The prosecution also called Steven Corso, a New York accountant who moved to Las Vegas in 2002 after being convicted of embezzling almost $6 million. Corso made a deal with the government and became a one-man sting operation. It was in Nevada that he crossed paths with Eppolito, who had moved west to become a screenwriter. Last year, Corso said, he offered to introduce Eppolito to a group of movie industry players, telling him, "They're Hollywood punks — some of 'em are famous." When the contacts wanted methamphetamine, Corso testified, Eppolito offered to supply the drugs.
Then last week, the jury heard from Peter Franzone, 56, a Flatbush tow-truck driver. He described a February afternoon in 1986 when Eppolito's cousin, Frank Santora Jr., strode into his garage with two other men while Eppolito stood watch outside. Twenty minutes later, Santora led Franzone into the garage, where he showed him a body and handed him a shovel, he testified.
"Frankie told me I gotta help bury the body because I'm an accessory, and if I didn't help him, he would kill me," Franzone said. He did not report the crime until last year — when he was approached by prosecutors — because, he said, "Who would believe me?"
In closing arguments, Cutler and Caracappa's lawyer, Edward Hayes, heaped disdain on the government's witnesses.
By the 1980s, Hayes said, "the Mafia's over. What are you left with? Informants. Casso is an escapee from the Bronx Zoo." As for Corso, Cutler called him a "sophisticated, unctuous, polished, lowlife thief." But chief prosecutor Robert Henoch said Cutler and Hayes had failed to explain why Eppolito and Caracappa had relationships with criminals like Kaplan in the first place. Why, he asked, would someone like Kaplan be able to describe Eppolito's basement, or Caracappa's pet cat?
"The truth is not always pretty, but the truth is always perfect," he said, addressing one of the defense attorneys. "You're the best lawyer in America, but you can't explain that away."
Thanks to Ellen Barry
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
After three weeks of testimony about gunshot wounds and buried bodies, about capos and whispered orders, the defense in the "Mafia cops" trial rested Tuesday morning with the image of a gnome.
"Franzone is a gnome," attorney Bruce Cutler said of a key government witness against his client, a retired New York City Police detective named Louis Eppolito. "A gnome," he said, "is defined as one of a race of dwarf-like creatures who lives underground and guards treasure hoards…. He's a creep and a lowlife and a liar."
It was a fitting end to a trial that has provided a three-week tour through Brooklyn's criminal underworld. Eppolito and his onetime partner, Stephen Caracappa, who retired from the force in the early 1990s, are accused of assisting a Luchese crime family underboss and participating in killings and racketeering.
Jurors will begin deliberations in the case today. Eppolito and Caracappa face the possibility of life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutor Daniel Wenner has called the case "one of the bloodiest and most violent betrayals of the badge this city has ever seen."
With little physical evidence, the government has built its case on the testimony of a series of shady figures — made men, felons, errand boys, stool pigeons — who testified that the two cops crossed over into their world.
The government's star witness was Burton Kaplan, 72, who is serving a 27-year sentence for drug dealing. Kaplan — a querulous, arthritic man — described himself as so ill-equipped for violence that when he was asked to ferry a corpse to Connecticut, he was "scared to death" and trembled the whole way.
Kaplan, a Jew, knew he could never be a made man, but he was well-connected. He introduced Eppolito and Caracappa to Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, a Luchese underboss who began paying them a $4,000-a-month retainer to pass on police intelligence, Kaplan testified.
The prosecution also called Steven Corso, a New York accountant who moved to Las Vegas in 2002 after being convicted of embezzling almost $6 million. Corso made a deal with the government and became a one-man sting operation. It was in Nevada that he crossed paths with Eppolito, who had moved west to become a screenwriter. Last year, Corso said, he offered to introduce Eppolito to a group of movie industry players, telling him, "They're Hollywood punks — some of 'em are famous." When the contacts wanted methamphetamine, Corso testified, Eppolito offered to supply the drugs.
Then last week, the jury heard from Peter Franzone, 56, a Flatbush tow-truck driver. He described a February afternoon in 1986 when Eppolito's cousin, Frank Santora Jr., strode into his garage with two other men while Eppolito stood watch outside. Twenty minutes later, Santora led Franzone into the garage, where he showed him a body and handed him a shovel, he testified.
"Frankie told me I gotta help bury the body because I'm an accessory, and if I didn't help him, he would kill me," Franzone said. He did not report the crime until last year — when he was approached by prosecutors — because, he said, "Who would believe me?"
In closing arguments, Cutler and Caracappa's lawyer, Edward Hayes, heaped disdain on the government's witnesses.
By the 1980s, Hayes said, "the Mafia's over. What are you left with? Informants. Casso is an escapee from the Bronx Zoo." As for Corso, Cutler called him a "sophisticated, unctuous, polished, lowlife thief." But chief prosecutor Robert Henoch said Cutler and Hayes had failed to explain why Eppolito and Caracappa had relationships with criminals like Kaplan in the first place. Why, he asked, would someone like Kaplan be able to describe Eppolito's basement, or Caracappa's pet cat?
"The truth is not always pretty, but the truth is always perfect," he said, addressing one of the defense attorneys. "You're the best lawyer in America, but you can't explain that away."
Thanks to Ellen Barry
Closing Arguments Begin in Colorful 'Mafia Cops' Trial
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Two ex-police detectives betrayed their badges by becoming hired guns for the Mafia, a prosecutor said Monday during closing arguments at their federal racketeering trial.
Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa "led double lives," helping unleash a wave of violence that left eight people dead, prosecutor Daniel Wenner told the jury. "They gathered and sold information to the mob. They kidnapped for the mob. They murdered for the mob," Wenner said. The prosecutor described the case as "the bloodiest, most violent betrayal of the badge this city has ever seen."
Caracappa's lawyer, Edward Hayes, countered by accusing the government of using the testimony of a convicted drug dealer, a gangster and an embezzler to frame an honest crime fighter. The witnesses "have conned people their whole lives," he said. The decorated detective "has no vices," Hayes said. "He doesn't have a secret life. ... What would possibly motivate him to betray everything? Nothing."
Authorities allege Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were involved in eight slayings between 1986 and 1990 while on the payroll both of the New York Police Department and Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
The "Mafia Cops" are accused of accepting $4,000 a month to help Casso silence informants and rub out rivals.
The partners retired to Las Vegas in the early 1990s but were arrested a year ago because of new evidence. It included the eyewitness account of a tow truck driver who managed a parking garage where a jeweler was executed in 1986 after running afoul of the Luchese family. The driver testified last week that he was forced to dig the jeweler's grave while Eppolito stood guard.
During three weeks of testimony, the jury also heard allegations that the partners gunned down a Gambino family captain, Eddie Lino, in 1990 after pulling over his car in a phony traffic stop.
Another victim had the misfortune of having the same name as a mobster involved in a botched hit on Casso; when the underboss wanted revenge, the detectives allegedly provided an address for the wrong Nicholas Guido, who was killed outside his home in 1986.
Defense attorneys have argued that the five-year statute of limitations has expired on the most serious crimes. Prosecutors say the killings were part of a conspiracy that lasted through a 2005 drug deal with FBI informant Steven Corso.
Eppolito's lawyer was to give his closing argument on Tuesday.
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Two ex-police detectives betrayed their badges by becoming hired guns for the Mafia, a prosecutor said Monday during closing arguments at their federal racketeering trial.
Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa "led double lives," helping unleash a wave of violence that left eight people dead, prosecutor Daniel Wenner told the jury. "They gathered and sold information to the mob. They kidnapped for the mob. They murdered for the mob," Wenner said. The prosecutor described the case as "the bloodiest, most violent betrayal of the badge this city has ever seen."
Caracappa's lawyer, Edward Hayes, countered by accusing the government of using the testimony of a convicted drug dealer, a gangster and an embezzler to frame an honest crime fighter. The witnesses "have conned people their whole lives," he said. The decorated detective "has no vices," Hayes said. "He doesn't have a secret life. ... What would possibly motivate him to betray everything? Nothing."
Authorities allege Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were involved in eight slayings between 1986 and 1990 while on the payroll both of the New York Police Department and Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
The "Mafia Cops" are accused of accepting $4,000 a month to help Casso silence informants and rub out rivals.
The partners retired to Las Vegas in the early 1990s but were arrested a year ago because of new evidence. It included the eyewitness account of a tow truck driver who managed a parking garage where a jeweler was executed in 1986 after running afoul of the Luchese family. The driver testified last week that he was forced to dig the jeweler's grave while Eppolito stood guard.
During three weeks of testimony, the jury also heard allegations that the partners gunned down a Gambino family captain, Eddie Lino, in 1990 after pulling over his car in a phony traffic stop.
Another victim had the misfortune of having the same name as a mobster involved in a botched hit on Casso; when the underboss wanted revenge, the detectives allegedly provided an address for the wrong Nicholas Guido, who was killed outside his home in 1986.
Defense attorneys have argued that the five-year statute of limitations has expired on the most serious crimes. Prosecutors say the killings were part of a conspiracy that lasted through a 2005 drug deal with FBI informant Steven Corso.
Eppolito's lawyer was to give his closing argument on Tuesday.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Overheard: The Sopranos
The Sopranos agreed to shoot eight extra episodes following this season before producers end the epic. The series is shot in New Jersey for realism because that's where the real gangsters operate, not Los Angeles. In Beverly Hills, the head of the local mafia is Dom Perignon.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Key Witness to be Recalled in Trial of 2 'Mafia Cops'
Friends of ours: Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Burton Kaplan, the government's star witness in the "Mafia cops" trial, already has told jurors that Louis Eppolito and former Great Kills resident Stephen Caracappa peddled information to the mob about police wiretaps, names of confidential informants and imminent arrests.
The two ex-cops also moonlighted as hit men, he testified. But Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, a bloodthirsty mobster who reputedly had the two former detectives on retainer, has said from prison that they were framed. So yesterday, Caracappa's lawyer Edward Hayes told U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein that he intends to recall Kaplan for questioning.
On Thursday, Casso told defense attorneys in a confidential phone conference that he had penned two letters to federal authorities claiming that he and Kaplan, with the backing of a corrupt FBI agent, had concocted the dirty-cops story.
Because prosecutors didn't reveal the Casso letters during pretrial discovery sessions, attorney Bettina Schein, co-counsel with Eppolito's lawyer Bruce Cutler, asked Weinstein to declare a mistrial.
Weinstein denied the bid. And after Cutler and Caracappa counsel Edward Hayes told the judge they would not call Casso as a witness, Weinstein refused to allow the jury to see the letters.
The judge also ordered the defense to limit its questions to Kaplan to new material.
Hayes participated in yesterday's court session by speakerphone from California. "You're supposed to be here in court," an obviously irked Weinstein told the absent attorney. "I'm only speaking with you on the phone as a courtesy to you and your client."
In testimony, retired Detective Leslie Shanahan told jurors that he and Caracappa worked back-to-back tours for nearly 30 hours straight on the day of the Eddie Lino rub-out. Caracappa is accused of pulling the trigger.
Kaplan is due to return to the stand when the trial resumes Monday morning.
Thanks to Jeff Harrell
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Burton Kaplan, the government's star witness in the "Mafia cops" trial, already has told jurors that Louis Eppolito and former Great Kills resident Stephen Caracappa peddled information to the mob about police wiretaps, names of confidential informants and imminent arrests.
The two ex-cops also moonlighted as hit men, he testified. But Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, a bloodthirsty mobster who reputedly had the two former detectives on retainer, has said from prison that they were framed. So yesterday, Caracappa's lawyer Edward Hayes told U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein that he intends to recall Kaplan for questioning.
On Thursday, Casso told defense attorneys in a confidential phone conference that he had penned two letters to federal authorities claiming that he and Kaplan, with the backing of a corrupt FBI agent, had concocted the dirty-cops story.
Because prosecutors didn't reveal the Casso letters during pretrial discovery sessions, attorney Bettina Schein, co-counsel with Eppolito's lawyer Bruce Cutler, asked Weinstein to declare a mistrial.
Weinstein denied the bid. And after Cutler and Caracappa counsel Edward Hayes told the judge they would not call Casso as a witness, Weinstein refused to allow the jury to see the letters.
The judge also ordered the defense to limit its questions to Kaplan to new material.
Hayes participated in yesterday's court session by speakerphone from California. "You're supposed to be here in court," an obviously irked Weinstein told the absent attorney. "I'm only speaking with you on the phone as a courtesy to you and your client."
In testimony, retired Detective Leslie Shanahan told jurors that he and Caracappa worked back-to-back tours for nearly 30 hours straight on the day of the Eddie Lino rub-out. Caracappa is accused of pulling the trigger.
Kaplan is due to return to the stand when the trial resumes Monday morning.
Thanks to Jeff Harrell
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Judge Denies Mistrial for "Mafia Cops"
Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
A federal judge ruled that 11th-hour revelations by a jailed Mafia underboss is not enough to cause a mistrial in the case of two former detectives accused of moonlighting for the mob.
Judge Jack Weinstein told attorneys for Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa they can still call Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso as a witness. The lawyers told the judge yesterday that Casso claims that their clients are innocent of some of the charges -- reversing allegations he made against the pair. The defense will decide today whether Casso will testify next week.
In a phone call yesterday from prison, lawyers said Casso referred them to a letter he wrote to federal prosecutors in which he claimed responsibility for some of the crimes for which Eppolito and Caracappa are charged.
Eppolito and Caracappa face charges for eight murders, two attempted murders and money laundering.
Casso pleaded guilty to murder and racketeering charges in 1994 and is currently serving a life sentence at a Colorado prison.
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
A federal judge ruled that 11th-hour revelations by a jailed Mafia underboss is not enough to cause a mistrial in the case of two former detectives accused of moonlighting for the mob.
Judge Jack Weinstein told attorneys for Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa they can still call Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso as a witness. The lawyers told the judge yesterday that Casso claims that their clients are innocent of some of the charges -- reversing allegations he made against the pair. The defense will decide today whether Casso will testify next week.
In a phone call yesterday from prison, lawyers said Casso referred them to a letter he wrote to federal prosecutors in which he claimed responsibility for some of the crimes for which Eppolito and Caracappa are charged.
Eppolito and Caracappa face charges for eight murders, two attempted murders and money laundering.
Casso pleaded guilty to murder and racketeering charges in 1994 and is currently serving a life sentence at a Colorado prison.
Gangland Killings: FBI Agent Indicted for Role in Mafia War
Friends of ours: Colombo Crime Family, Craig Sobel, John Sinagra, Greg "The Grim Reaper" Scarpa, Alphonse Persico, Carmine Persico, Joseph DeDomenico, Lorenzo Lampasi, Nicholas "Nicky Black" Grancio, Larry Mazza
Friends of mine: Lindley DeVecchio
A retired FBI special agent who was being investigated for his role in mob "hits" has been indicted by a Brooklyn, NY grand jury, according to the District Attorney's office. The decorated FBI agent, Lindley DeVecchio, was indicted on charges that he gave information to his Mafia informant that led to a series of gangland murders during the bloody Colombo Family gangland war of the 1990s, according to the indictment.
The arrest and indictment of retired FBI Agent Roy Lindley DeVecchio and two men Craig Sobel and John Sinagra associated with the Colombo crime family, who have all been implicated in Mafia murders from 1987 to 1992, has shocked New York City.
The murders all took place when DeVecchio was assigned to work with FBI “top echelon" informant and Colombo Family kingpin Greg "The Grim Reaper" Scarpa, in Brooklyn. Sobel and Sinagra are charged with being triggermen in two mob hits, and DeVecchio is charged with acting in concert in four mob-related killings.
This is the most stunning example of official corruption that I have ever seen, said Brooklyn District Attorney Richard Hynes. Four people were murdered with the help of a federal law enforcement agent who was charged with keeping them safe. Lindley DeVecchio deserves the maximum sentence of 25 years to life for each of these killings.
In 2005, the House Judiciary Committee was involved in preparing for hearings to look into allegations against FBI agents involved in organized crime investigations. The pre-hearing investigations uncovered discrepancies regarding DeVecchio and his relationship to Scarpa during 1980s and early 1990s. The case to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office with a recommendation for a full investigation.
Pursuant to its oversight responsibilities the Judiciary Committee will closely monitor the proceedings in this case, and review all the evidence presented concerning FBI misconduct, according to a Congressional spokesperson.
The first murder victim, Mary Bari, 31, was the stunning brunette girlfriend of Colombo consigliore Alphonse Persico, brother of then Colombo Family boss, Carmine Persico. The indictment charges DeVecchio told Scarpa that Bari had been speaking to federal authorities and should be taken care of. On September 25, 1984, she was shot and killed in a Brooklyn social club by Scarpa and other members of the Colombo crime family.
Agent DeVecchio is also charged with urging Scarpa to kill Joseph DeDomenico, a Colombo soldier who was considered a threat, because he had been using drugs, committing crimes without involving Scarpa and talking about becoming a Born-again Christian. DeDomenico, 45, was killed September 17, 1987, by Scarpa and other Colombo associates.
Sobel is charged with firing two blasts from a sawed-off shotgun that killed 17-year-old Dominick Masseria on the steps of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Brooklyn, October 31, 1989. Earlier that Halloween night Masseria had been present at an egg-throwing incident which turned violent, and involved several other youths from the neighborhood. While walking home he was the victim of a drive-by shooting. Present in the car were triggerman Sobel, Joseph Scarpa Greg Scarpa’s teenage son and his friend Patrick Porco.
In May of 1990 Porco was questioned by detectives at the 62nd Precinct stationhouse about Masseria’s murder. DeVecchio contacted Greg Scarpa to tell him that Porco, 18, had been speaking to authorities about Joseph Scarpa’s involvement in the Masseria shooting. Sinagra is charged with carrying out a Scarpa-ordered hit on Porco, to prevent him from speaking about Masseria.
The final murder charged is of a criminal rival of Scarpa’s, Lorenzo Lampasi, during the war within the Colombo crime family. Scarpa informed DeVecchio that he wanted to kill Lampasi, 66, and DeVecchio is charged with providing Scarpa critical information -- obtained during law-enforcement surveillance regarding Lampasi’s address and personal habits. On May 22, 1992, Lampasi was murdered in his driveway at 4 a.m., the time that Lampasi left his home every morning.
DeVecchio, 65, who retired from the FBI in 1996, has always maintained he was clean. A source within the New York City Police Department told this writer that the DeVecchio indictment does not mention his alleged role in one of the most notorious mob murder cases in New York history -- the brutal murder of mobster Nicholas "Nicky Black" Grancio in 1992.
Former hitman Larry Mazza, who later became an FBI informant, had claimed Scarpa successfully called on DeVecchio to pull surveillance off Grancio -- a rival mobster -- so Scarpa's crew could shoot him. However, nothing against DeVecchio could be proved by New York detectives.
Thanks to Jim Kouri, CPP
Friends of mine: Lindley DeVecchio
A retired FBI special agent who was being investigated for his role in mob "hits" has been indicted by a Brooklyn, NY grand jury, according to the District Attorney's office. The decorated FBI agent, Lindley DeVecchio, was indicted on charges that he gave information to his Mafia informant that led to a series of gangland murders during the bloody Colombo Family gangland war of the 1990s, according to the indictment.
The arrest and indictment of retired FBI Agent Roy Lindley DeVecchio and two men Craig Sobel and John Sinagra associated with the Colombo crime family, who have all been implicated in Mafia murders from 1987 to 1992, has shocked New York City.
The murders all took place when DeVecchio was assigned to work with FBI “top echelon" informant and Colombo Family kingpin Greg "The Grim Reaper" Scarpa, in Brooklyn. Sobel and Sinagra are charged with being triggermen in two mob hits, and DeVecchio is charged with acting in concert in four mob-related killings.
This is the most stunning example of official corruption that I have ever seen, said Brooklyn District Attorney Richard Hynes. Four people were murdered with the help of a federal law enforcement agent who was charged with keeping them safe. Lindley DeVecchio deserves the maximum sentence of 25 years to life for each of these killings.
In 2005, the House Judiciary Committee was involved in preparing for hearings to look into allegations against FBI agents involved in organized crime investigations. The pre-hearing investigations uncovered discrepancies regarding DeVecchio and his relationship to Scarpa during 1980s and early 1990s. The case to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office with a recommendation for a full investigation.
Pursuant to its oversight responsibilities the Judiciary Committee will closely monitor the proceedings in this case, and review all the evidence presented concerning FBI misconduct, according to a Congressional spokesperson.
The first murder victim, Mary Bari, 31, was the stunning brunette girlfriend of Colombo consigliore Alphonse Persico, brother of then Colombo Family boss, Carmine Persico. The indictment charges DeVecchio told Scarpa that Bari had been speaking to federal authorities and should be taken care of. On September 25, 1984, she was shot and killed in a Brooklyn social club by Scarpa and other members of the Colombo crime family.
Agent DeVecchio is also charged with urging Scarpa to kill Joseph DeDomenico, a Colombo soldier who was considered a threat, because he had been using drugs, committing crimes without involving Scarpa and talking about becoming a Born-again Christian. DeDomenico, 45, was killed September 17, 1987, by Scarpa and other Colombo associates.
Sobel is charged with firing two blasts from a sawed-off shotgun that killed 17-year-old Dominick Masseria on the steps of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Brooklyn, October 31, 1989. Earlier that Halloween night Masseria had been present at an egg-throwing incident which turned violent, and involved several other youths from the neighborhood. While walking home he was the victim of a drive-by shooting. Present in the car were triggerman Sobel, Joseph Scarpa Greg Scarpa’s teenage son and his friend Patrick Porco.
In May of 1990 Porco was questioned by detectives at the 62nd Precinct stationhouse about Masseria’s murder. DeVecchio contacted Greg Scarpa to tell him that Porco, 18, had been speaking to authorities about Joseph Scarpa’s involvement in the Masseria shooting. Sinagra is charged with carrying out a Scarpa-ordered hit on Porco, to prevent him from speaking about Masseria.
The final murder charged is of a criminal rival of Scarpa’s, Lorenzo Lampasi, during the war within the Colombo crime family. Scarpa informed DeVecchio that he wanted to kill Lampasi, 66, and DeVecchio is charged with providing Scarpa critical information -- obtained during law-enforcement surveillance regarding Lampasi’s address and personal habits. On May 22, 1992, Lampasi was murdered in his driveway at 4 a.m., the time that Lampasi left his home every morning.
DeVecchio, 65, who retired from the FBI in 1996, has always maintained he was clean. A source within the New York City Police Department told this writer that the DeVecchio indictment does not mention his alleged role in one of the most notorious mob murder cases in New York history -- the brutal murder of mobster Nicholas "Nicky Black" Grancio in 1992.
Former hitman Larry Mazza, who later became an FBI informant, had claimed Scarpa successfully called on DeVecchio to pull surveillance off Grancio -- a rival mobster -- so Scarpa's crew could shoot him. However, nothing against DeVecchio could be proved by New York detectives.
Thanks to Jim Kouri, CPP
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Retired F.B.I. Agent Turns Himself In to Brooklyn D.A.
Friends of ours: Gregory Scarpa Sr., Colombo Crime Family, Joseph "Joe Brewster" DeDomenico, Bonanno Crime Family
Friends of mine: Larry Lampesi
A retired F.B.I agent who has been plagued by allegations of close ties to organized crime for more than a decade turned himself in at the Brooklyn district attorney's office last night. The former agent, R. Lindley DeVecchio, who is scheduled to be arraigned today on charges that he helped a gangster kill at least three people, arrived at the office with two lawyers, Mark Bederow and Douglas E. Grover.
An indictment to be unsealed today in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn charges Mr. DeVecchio, 65, with providing the gangster, Gregory Scarpa Sr., with information that led to the killings, according to a law enforcement source.
Starting in 1982, Mr. DeVecchio spent years cultivating a relationship with Mr. Scarpa, a capo in the Colombo crime family who eventually became an informant for the bureau. But according to the indictment, Mr. DeVecchio began providing information to Mr. Scarpa, who in 1984 killed Mary Bari, an informant who had dated a mobster.
Mr. DeVecchio is also accused of providing Mr. Scarpa with information that helped him in the 1987 killing of Joseph DeDomenico, a mobster also known as Joe Brewster, and the 1992 killing of Larry Lampesi, a mob associate.
Mr. Grover last night called the charges "a complete fabrication."
In 1996, a two-year inquiry by the Justice Department and the F.B.I. into Mr. DeVecchio's work included allegations that he helped Mr. Scarpa keep track of rivals but found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing. While some of his colleagues told superiors they felt his relationship with Mr. Scarpa had become too intimate, Mr. DeVecchio said in an affidavit that the only things he ever received from Mr. Scarpa were a Cabbage Patch doll, a bottle of wine and a pan of lasagna.
Mr. DeVecchio retired in 1996 after 33 years with the bureau and moved to Sarasota, Fla. Mr. Scarpa died of AIDS in prison in 1994.
Several of Mr. DeVecchio's former colleagues — including assistant F.B.I directors and Joseph D. Pistone, who infiltrated the Bonanno crime family under the name Donnie Brasco — have rallied to his cause.
"We're perplexed at this point in time as to why the district attorney is bringing, from what we know, the same matters that were previously investigated and adjudicated," said Christopher Mattiace, a former F.B.I. supervisory special agent who is part of the group.
Thanks to Jennifer 8. Lee
Friends of mine: Larry Lampesi
A retired F.B.I agent who has been plagued by allegations of close ties to organized crime for more than a decade turned himself in at the Brooklyn district attorney's office last night. The former agent, R. Lindley DeVecchio, who is scheduled to be arraigned today on charges that he helped a gangster kill at least three people, arrived at the office with two lawyers, Mark Bederow and Douglas E. Grover.
An indictment to be unsealed today in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn charges Mr. DeVecchio, 65, with providing the gangster, Gregory Scarpa Sr., with information that led to the killings, according to a law enforcement source.
Starting in 1982, Mr. DeVecchio spent years cultivating a relationship with Mr. Scarpa, a capo in the Colombo crime family who eventually became an informant for the bureau. But according to the indictment, Mr. DeVecchio began providing information to Mr. Scarpa, who in 1984 killed Mary Bari, an informant who had dated a mobster.
Mr. DeVecchio is also accused of providing Mr. Scarpa with information that helped him in the 1987 killing of Joseph DeDomenico, a mobster also known as Joe Brewster, and the 1992 killing of Larry Lampesi, a mob associate.
Mr. Grover last night called the charges "a complete fabrication."
In 1996, a two-year inquiry by the Justice Department and the F.B.I. into Mr. DeVecchio's work included allegations that he helped Mr. Scarpa keep track of rivals but found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing. While some of his colleagues told superiors they felt his relationship with Mr. Scarpa had become too intimate, Mr. DeVecchio said in an affidavit that the only things he ever received from Mr. Scarpa were a Cabbage Patch doll, a bottle of wine and a pan of lasagna.
Mr. DeVecchio retired in 1996 after 33 years with the bureau and moved to Sarasota, Fla. Mr. Scarpa died of AIDS in prison in 1994.
Several of Mr. DeVecchio's former colleagues — including assistant F.B.I directors and Joseph D. Pistone, who infiltrated the Bonanno crime family under the name Donnie Brasco — have rallied to his cause.
"We're perplexed at this point in time as to why the district attorney is bringing, from what we know, the same matters that were previously investigated and adjudicated," said Christopher Mattiace, a former F.B.I. supervisory special agent who is part of the group.
Thanks to Jennifer 8. Lee
In Mob Trial, a Spotlight on a Rogue
Friends of ours: Edward Lino, Gambino Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Steven Corso — tax cheat, thief, disgraced accountant — spent a good part of the week telling jurors at the racketeering trial of two retired New York detectives, Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, how the two men moved to Las Vegas in the early 1990's and committed crimes.
He testified that last year they helped arrange a two-minute, 19-second drug deal, in which Mr. Eppolito's son was secretly recorded selling an ounce of methamphetamine for $900. He said that a few weeks later, Mr. Eppolito, who acted in films and wrote scripts after leaving the police force, took $14,000 for a screenplay he was writing, even though he knew it had come from a mob-connected drug deal.
Eventually, of course, the witness, with his pomaded hair and designer suits, was forced to talk about his own high crimes and misdemeanors. Under cross-examination, he admitted having first approached Mr. Eppolito pretending to be interested in his daughter and acknowledged stealing $5,329,566 from his former firm, spending it on a "lifestyle" of "girlfriends, jewelry and going out."
Mr. Corso, 50, is the government's chief witness in the Las Vegas portion of the trial, a transcontinental case in which the two defendants have been charged with taking part in at least eight murders for the Brooklyn mob.
He traveled through Las Vegas with a miniature recorder, and the tapes he made have allowed the government to argue that the two defendants were engaged in a criminal conspiracy stretching from murder in the 1980's to a drug deal last year.
Bruce Cutler, Mr. Eppolito's lawyer, painted Mr. Corso as a debauched and profligate government pawn: a man, he said, who left $600,000 in "unpaid lines of credit at various and sundry casinos." Ever one for eloquent aggression, Mr. Cutler impugned his conduct (and oddly enough, with no apparent reason, his patriotism, too) then lambasted him for having stooped to recording Mr. Eppolito, recovering after heart surgery in a hospital room.
Rae Koshetz, Mr. Caracappa's lawyer, needled Mr. Corso for having said the phrase "with me" was gangland slang, as in, "He's with me."
In what was probably the only Mafia-logical interpretation of Scripture ever offered in a court, Ms. Koshetz read aloud from the 23rd Psalm to prove there was nothing inherently sinister about "with me."
"'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,'" she read, "'I fear no evil for you are" —pause — "with me.' " She then asked Mr. Corso. "Surely, you don't think the author of the 23rd Psalm was talking about a drug deal, do you, sir?"
Speaking of authors, one of the half-dozen or so who have hitched their wagons to the case is Jane McCormick, former president of a Las Vegas cleaning service and a onetime call girl whose most famous customer was, in her words, "Frank Sinatra when he wasn't married."
Ms. McCormick, 64, wrote "The Confidence Game," her life story — a tale of child molestation, rape, abortion, "favors for men" and silicone injections that led, she said, to "gangrene" in her breasts.
Four years ago, hoping to make the leap to Hollywood, she paid Mr. Eppolito $45,000 to turn her book into a screenplay — a screenplay, she has sued him for having failed to write.
Throughout the trial, Ms. McCormick has installed herself in the pews of court, hoping the publicity will help sell her book. She is also a figure of writerly retribution: the author as avenging angel. "He made me believe he was the hotshot of the movie world," she said. "But he didn't have what it took."
Little physical evidence has been introduced so far, though on Thursday, prosecutors presented what could become a crucial exhibit. It was a watch — specifically a Pulsar watch with a black, square face found near the curb of the Belt Parkway on Nov. 6, 1990. That was the date and place that Edward Lino, a Gambino family captain, was killed in his Mercedes-Benz — by the two ex-detectives, prosecutors say.
The watch was discovered within 100 feet of Mr. Lino's car by Detective Mary Dugan of the New York Police Department's crime scene unit. Detective Dugan, now retired, testified that she had found the watch on the night of Mr. Lino's death after finding his body slumped behind the wheel of the car.
Prosecutors plan to argue in closing remarks that the watch belonged to Mr. Caracappa.
As proof of just how exhaustive their case has been so far, they showed a photograph on Tuesday from a 1989 party celebrating the promotion of a former colleague of Mr. Caracappa.
The photograph shows Mr. Caracappa in his shirtsleeves and a tie, a cigarette tucked Jean-Paul Belmondo-style at his lip. On his wrist is a watch, with a black square face.
Thanks to Alan Feuer
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Steven Corso — tax cheat, thief, disgraced accountant — spent a good part of the week telling jurors at the racketeering trial of two retired New York detectives, Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, how the two men moved to Las Vegas in the early 1990's and committed crimes.
He testified that last year they helped arrange a two-minute, 19-second drug deal, in which Mr. Eppolito's son was secretly recorded selling an ounce of methamphetamine for $900. He said that a few weeks later, Mr. Eppolito, who acted in films and wrote scripts after leaving the police force, took $14,000 for a screenplay he was writing, even though he knew it had come from a mob-connected drug deal.
Eventually, of course, the witness, with his pomaded hair and designer suits, was forced to talk about his own high crimes and misdemeanors. Under cross-examination, he admitted having first approached Mr. Eppolito pretending to be interested in his daughter and acknowledged stealing $5,329,566 from his former firm, spending it on a "lifestyle" of "girlfriends, jewelry and going out."
Mr. Corso, 50, is the government's chief witness in the Las Vegas portion of the trial, a transcontinental case in which the two defendants have been charged with taking part in at least eight murders for the Brooklyn mob.
He traveled through Las Vegas with a miniature recorder, and the tapes he made have allowed the government to argue that the two defendants were engaged in a criminal conspiracy stretching from murder in the 1980's to a drug deal last year.
Bruce Cutler, Mr. Eppolito's lawyer, painted Mr. Corso as a debauched and profligate government pawn: a man, he said, who left $600,000 in "unpaid lines of credit at various and sundry casinos." Ever one for eloquent aggression, Mr. Cutler impugned his conduct (and oddly enough, with no apparent reason, his patriotism, too) then lambasted him for having stooped to recording Mr. Eppolito, recovering after heart surgery in a hospital room.
Rae Koshetz, Mr. Caracappa's lawyer, needled Mr. Corso for having said the phrase "with me" was gangland slang, as in, "He's with me."
In what was probably the only Mafia-logical interpretation of Scripture ever offered in a court, Ms. Koshetz read aloud from the 23rd Psalm to prove there was nothing inherently sinister about "with me."
"'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,'" she read, "'I fear no evil for you are" —pause — "with me.' " She then asked Mr. Corso. "Surely, you don't think the author of the 23rd Psalm was talking about a drug deal, do you, sir?"
Speaking of authors, one of the half-dozen or so who have hitched their wagons to the case is Jane McCormick, former president of a Las Vegas cleaning service and a onetime call girl whose most famous customer was, in her words, "Frank Sinatra when he wasn't married."
Ms. McCormick, 64, wrote "The Confidence Game," her life story — a tale of child molestation, rape, abortion, "favors for men" and silicone injections that led, she said, to "gangrene" in her breasts.
Four years ago, hoping to make the leap to Hollywood, she paid Mr. Eppolito $45,000 to turn her book into a screenplay — a screenplay, she has sued him for having failed to write.
Throughout the trial, Ms. McCormick has installed herself in the pews of court, hoping the publicity will help sell her book. She is also a figure of writerly retribution: the author as avenging angel. "He made me believe he was the hotshot of the movie world," she said. "But he didn't have what it took."
Little physical evidence has been introduced so far, though on Thursday, prosecutors presented what could become a crucial exhibit. It was a watch — specifically a Pulsar watch with a black, square face found near the curb of the Belt Parkway on Nov. 6, 1990. That was the date and place that Edward Lino, a Gambino family captain, was killed in his Mercedes-Benz — by the two ex-detectives, prosecutors say.
The watch was discovered within 100 feet of Mr. Lino's car by Detective Mary Dugan of the New York Police Department's crime scene unit. Detective Dugan, now retired, testified that she had found the watch on the night of Mr. Lino's death after finding his body slumped behind the wheel of the car.
Prosecutors plan to argue in closing remarks that the watch belonged to Mr. Caracappa.
As proof of just how exhaustive their case has been so far, they showed a photograph on Tuesday from a 1989 party celebrating the promotion of a former colleague of Mr. Caracappa.
The photograph shows Mr. Caracappa in his shirtsleeves and a tie, a cigarette tucked Jean-Paul Belmondo-style at his lip. On his wrist is a watch, with a black square face.
Thanks to Alan Feuer
Mobsters Indicted in Stock Scam
Friends of ours: Colombo Crime Family, Lucchese Crime Family, Joseph Baudanza, Carmine Baudanza
Members of two New York organized crime families were arrested and indicted on Thursday for running a penny stock scam that controlled and extorted money from brokerage firms through bribes, threats and violence, prosecutors said.
Ten members and associates of the Colombo and Luchese families were indicted in federal court in Brooklyn on charges including racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, kidnapping and money laundering.
According to the indictment, the defendants controlled 15 small New York brokerage firms, mainly based in downtown Manhattan.
It said they falsely inflated stock prices by promoting penny stocks -- shares that trade under $5 -- before dumping their own personal holdings. The estimated loss to investors was $20 million.
Investors should not be "victimized by unscrupulous brokers backed by the mob," Roslynn Mauskopf, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. "Investors are entitled to a level playing field."
According to the indictment, between 1994 and 2005, licensed and unlicensed brokers were paid bribes in the form of commissions up to 50 percent of the price of each stock sold. Investors opening accounts were at first encouraged to buy established stocks, and then penny stocks, the indictment said.
The defendants, including accused Colombo family captain Joseph Baudanza, 61, and his brother Carmine Baudanza, 63, also extorted stock brokers, traders, cold callers and brokerage firm owners through threats and violence, authorities said.
One stock promoter was kidnapped and chained to a pit bull dog, one broker was beaten with a bat, and another was stabbed when he tried to leave one of the firms, authorities said.
Joseph Baudanza faces a maximum prison sentence of 70 years, while Carmine Baudanza faces up to 90 years.
Lawyers for the defendants could not be immediately reached for comment.
Members of two New York organized crime families were arrested and indicted on Thursday for running a penny stock scam that controlled and extorted money from brokerage firms through bribes, threats and violence, prosecutors said.
Ten members and associates of the Colombo and Luchese families were indicted in federal court in Brooklyn on charges including racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, kidnapping and money laundering.
According to the indictment, the defendants controlled 15 small New York brokerage firms, mainly based in downtown Manhattan.
It said they falsely inflated stock prices by promoting penny stocks -- shares that trade under $5 -- before dumping their own personal holdings. The estimated loss to investors was $20 million.
Investors should not be "victimized by unscrupulous brokers backed by the mob," Roslynn Mauskopf, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. "Investors are entitled to a level playing field."
According to the indictment, between 1994 and 2005, licensed and unlicensed brokers were paid bribes in the form of commissions up to 50 percent of the price of each stock sold. Investors opening accounts were at first encouraged to buy established stocks, and then penny stocks, the indictment said.
The defendants, including accused Colombo family captain Joseph Baudanza, 61, and his brother Carmine Baudanza, 63, also extorted stock brokers, traders, cold callers and brokerage firm owners through threats and violence, authorities said.
One stock promoter was kidnapped and chained to a pit bull dog, one broker was beaten with a bat, and another was stabbed when he tried to leave one of the firms, authorities said.
Joseph Baudanza faces a maximum prison sentence of 70 years, while Carmine Baudanza faces up to 90 years.
Lawyers for the defendants could not be immediately reached for comment.
Time for "Mafia Cop" to Honor his Family
"There are some things that you're taught as a child that stay with you the rest of your life. It's like a code you can't break. In my case, a Cosa Nostra code. And if following that code means having to face the consequences, even among friends, then so be it."
Excerpt from "Mafia Cop," by Louis Eppolito.
It's time. Time for Louie Eppolito to face the consequences.
Now that he has announced he will not even mount a defense against the charges that he kidnapped and murdered for money
, it's time for the former detective to act like a man, and fall on a grenade for his family.Last Wednesday I sat in the courtroom at the so-called Mafia cops trial where a sleazy accountant named Steven Corso - who became a federal wire-wearing mole in the nether world of Vegas - introduced a hit parade of audiotape of Eppolito and former partner Stephen Caracappa. On one tape, Corso, posing as a middleman who can get investors to pay Eppolito money to write a screenplay, says the Hollywood guys want designer drugs. Eppolito says, "Tony can do that."
Tony being his son, Anthony Eppolito. Here is a guy, Louie Eppolito, a former cop who likes to brag he's the 11th-most-decorated cop in NYPD history, involving his son in a drug bust so that he can scam $75,000 for a movie script. Which is $5,000 more than the feds say Louie Eppolito charged for a mob contract killing on the Belt Parkway.
As the audiotape played, Eppolito sat at the defense table nervously craning his neck like a man preparing for the gallows. Seated behind him his wife, Fran, looked as defeated as Edie Falco in the recent hospital scenes in "The Sopranos." Then came the videotape. Fran watched her son sell an ounce of methamphetamine to Corso for $900, for which he's facing major time in jail.
It gets worse.
Because Louie Eppolito failed to report chunks of money on his tax returns, which Fran Eppolito co-signed, she is also facing an income tax evasion rap. Not only is Louie Eppolito a dirty cop, say the feds, but he's also dragging his wife and son into prison with him. Real men don't do that. That's definitely not part of The Code. And there was more.
In the afternoon, Fran watched an attractive woman named Cabrini Cama, who took the witness stand for the prosecution, admit she began a six-year "relationship" with Eppolito in 1983, and confirmed that Eppolito met with Burton Kaplan, the prosecution's star witness, in her Brooklyn apartment.
For causing his wife so much public shame, for getting her and his son jammed up with the law, Louie Eppolito owes it to his family to end this charade and do the time for his crimes.
I asked one of the feds associated with this case if Eppolito could still come clean, fess up and tell the truth, in exchange for a promise of no jail time for his wife and son. "The time to do that was really before the trial started," the fed said. "But, hey, our door is open."
All through his book "Mafia Cop" Louis Eppolito writes about the hard-knock lessons he learned from his brutal Mafioso father, Ralph (Fat the Gangster) Eppolito, who often beat him with his fists, two-by-fours, even loaves of Italian bread across the face at the dinner table. All this was supposed to teach young Louie to be a "man."
Louie Eppolito was raised by wolves and therefore acted like a wild animal out there on the street wearing the uniform and badge of the NYPD, beating prisoners, killing people, laughing as cops gave roof leapers "diving scores" as they plunged to their deaths, according to the book.
Ha-ha-ha. But sit ringside at this trial and you know that Eppolito and Caracappa are so far behind on rounds that they need a lottery punch knockout to win. That could come only if the judge's jury charge is so narrow on the statute of limitations aspect of the case that the jury doesn't believe the 2004 drug bust set up by Eppolito in Vegas constitutes evidence of a continuing criminal enterprise under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law.
But that's one scary roll of the dice. Especially because there's a strong possibility that if Eppolito and Caracappa are cleared on the statute of limitations technicality in Federal Court, the State of New York could charge them for murder, on which there is no statute of limitations.
In his "Mafia Cop" dedication to Fran, Eppolito writes, "To my wife, Frances, who has put up with me for the past 20 years. Her great love and understanding of me will always be a mystery waiting to be solved."
Indeed.
Thanks to Denis Hamill
Actor Revisits Mob connection
One of the most prominent new faces on TV's most popular Mafia drama is an actor whose career in mob fiction began when he was just a boy.
Though he's thoroughly ensconced in his new "Sopranos" role, Lou Martini Jr. fondly remembers one of his first acting gigs, in the wedding reception scene in "The Godfather."
"My part is when James Caan is taking the bridesmaid upstairs to go fool around . . . at the beginning of the movie," Martini said in a recent phone call from New York."Those two little kids run by into the kitchen, and there's the wedding cake the ladies are fixing, and we run around the cake. Well, the first kid is me."
Martini's father was cast as Luca Brasi in "The Godfather," the role that generated the memorable line "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes," a mob-movie quote that is second only to Marlon Brando's "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." But Lou Martini Sr. got sick on his first day on the set and was replaced by wrestler Lenny Montana. Martini had a stroke and died in 1970, and young Martini's mother took him out of acting and had him focus on school.
Still, after falling back in love with acting in college, Martini had to make a decision: scrape his way up through the world of sports broadcasting (his major) or return to New York to be with family while pursuing a career in acting.He chose family and acting.
His latest Mafia-related role is only a little shadier than "young boy at wedding party," so far, anyway. On "The Sopranos," he plays Anthony Infante, the reluctant new liaison between the New York and New Jersey crime families. When Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) needs to communicate with John Sacramoni (Vince Curatola), the jailed boss of one of the New York families, he goes through Martini's character, an unassuming optometrist who happens to be Sacramoni's brother-in-law.
Martini plays Infante as a skittish, nervous bystander who is uncomfortable at having to play the go-between for the powerful criminals. But he has some underlying complexity that may surface later this season. "I think in the back of Anthony's mind somewhere, like a lot of people, he may be a little bit excited about getting involved," Martini said. "It could be a dream of his to maybe be a gangster one day." On the other hand: "He's pretty happy selling Armani sunglasses."
Martini recently appeared as Lou the Doorman in the reality show "Gastineau Girls" and has been in Broadway plays such as "Tony n' Tina's Wedding." He also had a Sundance Film Festival hit with "Lbs.," a story about eating disorders. It hits theaters in May. And he's shopping around a sitcom based on his relationship with his mother, who died last year.
He got cut out of the March 19 episode of "The Sopranos" because of a change in the story line. That was "disappointing," he said. But he does have "a little thing" in the fifth episode on April 9. "And then my really nice episode, if it sticks the way it is -- because you never know in this business -- is episode 10," he said.
Even with as much fun as he's having in the acting world, he'd love to get back into sports broadcasting. "If you were to snap your fingers and say, 'You can be doing the sports report at 6 and 11 on ABC here in New York,' I'd take the job in a second."
Thanks to Bill Hutchens
Though he's thoroughly ensconced in his new "Sopranos" role, Lou Martini Jr. fondly remembers one of his first acting gigs, in the wedding reception scene in "The Godfather."
"My part is when James Caan is taking the bridesmaid upstairs to go fool around . . . at the beginning of the movie," Martini said in a recent phone call from New York."Those two little kids run by into the kitchen, and there's the wedding cake the ladies are fixing, and we run around the cake. Well, the first kid is me."
Martini's father was cast as Luca Brasi in "The Godfather," the role that generated the memorable line "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes," a mob-movie quote that is second only to Marlon Brando's "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." But Lou Martini Sr. got sick on his first day on the set and was replaced by wrestler Lenny Montana. Martini had a stroke and died in 1970, and young Martini's mother took him out of acting and had him focus on school.
Still, after falling back in love with acting in college, Martini had to make a decision: scrape his way up through the world of sports broadcasting (his major) or return to New York to be with family while pursuing a career in acting.He chose family and acting.
His latest Mafia-related role is only a little shadier than "young boy at wedding party," so far, anyway. On "The Sopranos," he plays Anthony Infante, the reluctant new liaison between the New York and New Jersey crime families. When Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) needs to communicate with John Sacramoni (Vince Curatola), the jailed boss of one of the New York families, he goes through Martini's character, an unassuming optometrist who happens to be Sacramoni's brother-in-law.
Martini plays Infante as a skittish, nervous bystander who is uncomfortable at having to play the go-between for the powerful criminals. But he has some underlying complexity that may surface later this season. "I think in the back of Anthony's mind somewhere, like a lot of people, he may be a little bit excited about getting involved," Martini said. "It could be a dream of his to maybe be a gangster one day." On the other hand: "He's pretty happy selling Armani sunglasses."
Martini recently appeared as Lou the Doorman in the reality show "Gastineau Girls" and has been in Broadway plays such as "Tony n' Tina's Wedding." He also had a Sundance Film Festival hit with "Lbs.," a story about eating disorders. It hits theaters in May. And he's shopping around a sitcom based on his relationship with his mother, who died last year.
He got cut out of the March 19 episode of "The Sopranos" because of a change in the story line. That was "disappointing," he said. But he does have "a little thing" in the fifth episode on April 9. "And then my really nice episode, if it sticks the way it is -- because you never know in this business -- is episode 10," he said.
Even with as much fun as he's having in the acting world, he'd love to get back into sports broadcasting. "If you were to snap your fingers and say, 'You can be doing the sports report at 6 and 11 on ABC here in New York,' I'd take the job in a second."
Thanks to Bill Hutchens
Man Says "Mafia Cops" Ordered Him to Dig Grave
Friends of mine: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of ours: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa, Frank Santoro
A tow truck driver testified Tuesday that he was forced to dig the grave of a jeweler who was allegedly kidnapped and killed in 1986 by two New York City detectives moonlighting as hit men for the mob.
A gangster involved in the Brooklyn slaying "told me that I had to help bury the dead man," Peter Franzone said at the federal trial of the former detectives, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. "He said if I told anybody, he'd kill me and my family."
The 56-year-old witness said he kept quiet for 19 years because he was convinced no one would believe that police were mixed up with the mob, and because he feared Eppolito might put him in his own grave. "I was afraid of Louie Eppolito," he said.
Franzone broke his silence last year under questioning by federal authorities reinvestigating the slaying of Israel Greenwald, a Diamond District jeweler who ran afoul of the Luchese crime family.
Authorities allege Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were involved in the killings of Greenwald and seven other victims between 1986 and 1990 while on the payroll both of the NYPD and Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. Prosecutors said the detectives committed killings for up to $65,000 a hit.
Greenwald was killed in 1986 after being pulled over by Eppolito and Caracappa and taken to a parking garage managed by Franzone, prosecutors said.
On the witness stand Tuesday, the tow truck driver told jurors he had seen a man in a pinstriped suit and a yarmulke being led inside a one-car garage by a Luchese associate, Frank Santoro, and a man fitting the description of Caracappa. Eppolito -- whom he had previously met -- was waiting in a car outside, he said.
Franzone said about 20 minutes later, the garage door opened, and Santoro and the other man emerged without Greenwald. The other man left with Eppolito, and then Santoro took Franzone into the garage, showed him the victim's body and ordered him to dig a 5-foot grave in the garage, the witness testified.
The body was dumped in the hole, and covered with cement. Santoro himself was killed the next year.
Greenwald's body was discovered last April after Franzone told investigators where to find it. Authorities said the jeweler had been shot in the head.
Friends of ours: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa, Frank Santoro
A tow truck driver testified Tuesday that he was forced to dig the grave of a jeweler who was allegedly kidnapped and killed in 1986 by two New York City detectives moonlighting as hit men for the mob.
A gangster involved in the Brooklyn slaying "told me that I had to help bury the dead man," Peter Franzone said at the federal trial of the former detectives, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. "He said if I told anybody, he'd kill me and my family."
The 56-year-old witness said he kept quiet for 19 years because he was convinced no one would believe that police were mixed up with the mob, and because he feared Eppolito might put him in his own grave. "I was afraid of Louie Eppolito," he said.
Franzone broke his silence last year under questioning by federal authorities reinvestigating the slaying of Israel Greenwald, a Diamond District jeweler who ran afoul of the Luchese crime family.
Authorities allege Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were involved in the killings of Greenwald and seven other victims between 1986 and 1990 while on the payroll both of the NYPD and Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. Prosecutors said the detectives committed killings for up to $65,000 a hit.
Greenwald was killed in 1986 after being pulled over by Eppolito and Caracappa and taken to a parking garage managed by Franzone, prosecutors said.
On the witness stand Tuesday, the tow truck driver told jurors he had seen a man in a pinstriped suit and a yarmulke being led inside a one-car garage by a Luchese associate, Frank Santoro, and a man fitting the description of Caracappa. Eppolito -- whom he had previously met -- was waiting in a car outside, he said.
Franzone said about 20 minutes later, the garage door opened, and Santoro and the other man emerged without Greenwald. The other man left with Eppolito, and then Santoro took Franzone into the garage, showed him the victim's body and ordered him to dig a 5-foot grave in the garage, the witness testified.
The body was dumped in the hole, and covered with cement. Santoro himself was killed the next year.
Greenwald's body was discovered last April after Franzone told investigators where to find it. Authorities said the jeweler had been shot in the head.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
James Caan Hails District Attorney for Probing Agent
Friends of ours: Joseph "Jo-Jo" Russo, Colombo Crime Family, Gregory Scarpa
"The Godfather" and "Las Vegas" star James Caan is close to some real mobsters in his offscreen life - so he knows the difference between the Mafia and make-believe. So when he heard that allegedly corrupt FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio was being investigated, he took the time to thank Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes in a letter. After all, DeVecchio had helped put away one of Caan's pals, Joseph (Jo-Jo) Russo, a Colombo family member convicted in 1992 of murder and racketeering charges.
Caan wanted "to thank [Hynes] ... for undertaking such an extensive and malignant corruption case." "Joseph Russo is a dear friend of mine and I cannot express enough how pleased I am that your office has taken interest and is in pursuit of corrrecting this problem," Caan wrote from his office in Encino, Calif. Caan's letter, obtained by the Daily News, also thanks Hynes for "taking the time to evaluate the situation to correct the wrongs that have affected so many lives."
Caan could not be reached for comment. His publicist, Paul Bloch, said, "He's shooting on location and I can't get to him."
There were other strong reactions to the news of DeVecchio's indictment, including charges that he allegedly helped mobster Gregory Scarpa kill 17-year-old Patrick Porco. "Losing Patrick Porco as a teenager ruined the lives of his entire family,"
said attorney David Schoen, who represents Porco's brother and sisters in a pending civil action against DeVecchio. "The family is stunned now to learn that an FBI agent is allegedly involved in Patrick's murder. Stunned, and they're looking forward to getting to the bottom of what happened," said Schoen.
Other reaction came from a former NYPD detective who said he was a fall guy for DeVecchio and now hopes his name will be cleared. Joseph Simone said his life was wrecked when he was accused of leaking information to the mob during the 1992 Colombo wars. At the time, he was working on a task force unit headed by DeVecchio.
Simone was acquitted in 1994 of the criminal charges, but lost his job after a 1996 NYPD administrative trial found he had failed to report that mobsters had tried to bribe him. He gets no pension despite more than two decades on the police force. "I hope now that the real rat is getting indicted, maybe that will allow the department to reconsider my case," said Simone.
"The Godfather" and "Las Vegas" star James Caan is close to some real mobsters in his offscreen life - so he knows the difference between the Mafia and make-believe. So when he heard that allegedly corrupt FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio was being investigated, he took the time to thank Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes in a letter. After all, DeVecchio had helped put away one of Caan's pals, Joseph (Jo-Jo) Russo, a Colombo family member convicted in 1992 of murder and racketeering charges.
Caan wanted "to thank [Hynes] ... for undertaking such an extensive and malignant corruption case." "Joseph Russo is a dear friend of mine and I cannot express enough how pleased I am that your office has taken interest and is in pursuit of corrrecting this problem," Caan wrote from his office in Encino, Calif. Caan's letter, obtained by the Daily News, also thanks Hynes for "taking the time to evaluate the situation to correct the wrongs that have affected so many lives."
Caan could not be reached for comment. His publicist, Paul Bloch, said, "He's shooting on location and I can't get to him."
There were other strong reactions to the news of DeVecchio's indictment, including charges that he allegedly helped mobster Gregory Scarpa kill 17-year-old Patrick Porco. "Losing Patrick Porco as a teenager ruined the lives of his entire family,"
said attorney David Schoen, who represents Porco's brother and sisters in a pending civil action against DeVecchio. "The family is stunned now to learn that an FBI agent is allegedly involved in Patrick's murder. Stunned, and they're looking forward to getting to the bottom of what happened," said Schoen.
Other reaction came from a former NYPD detective who said he was a fall guy for DeVecchio and now hopes his name will be cleared. Joseph Simone said his life was wrecked when he was accused of leaking information to the mob during the 1992 Colombo wars. At the time, he was working on a task force unit headed by DeVecchio.
Simone was acquitted in 1994 of the criminal charges, but lost his job after a 1996 NYPD administrative trial found he had failed to report that mobsters had tried to bribe him. He gets no pension despite more than two decades on the police force. "I hope now that the real rat is getting indicted, maybe that will allow the department to reconsider my case," said Simone.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
'Mafia cops' trial has new sidebar
Woman says she was financially ruined after paying defendant to write script about her life that hasn't sold
Whatever Jane McCormick did in Las Vegas during her wild days as a party girl (and the way she remembers things, she did a lot) certainly hasn't stayed there.
A brassy blonde who bears a resemblance to actress Doris Roberts of "Everybody Loves Raymond," McCormick, 65, is one of the most unusual spectators to show up at the "Mafia Cops" trial in Brooklyn federal court. She also hasn't been quiet about the $45,000 beef she has with one of the defendants, ex-NYPD detective Louis Eppolito, 57, who is on trial for racketeering, along with his former partner, Stephen Caracappa, 64.
McCormick, who is living on Social Security disability in Minnesota, said the money she paid Eppolito in 2002 represented a fee to write a film script about her life.
She paid him to write about her life? Isn't it usually the other way around? "I was stupid," McCormick now says in retrospect.
Actually, trial testimony showed that Eppolito, who got a taste for the movie business by doing bit roles in films such as "GoodFellas," regularly peddled the idea of raising money by getting fees from people to write scripts for them.
Seventy-five thousand dollars was the standard Eppolito pitch, said witness Stephen Corso. In McCormick's case, she said that when she balked at that price tag, Eppolito knocked it down to $45,000, an amount that McCormick raised through a bank loan and $10,000 cash advance from her credit card.
"He filled my head with delusion," McCormick said.
They way she tells it, there was a lot of material for a racy film. According to McCormick, she spent time as a prostitute in the 1960s in Las Vegas and was arm candy for the likes of Frank Sinatra. She caroused with the Rat Pack and knew mobsters. Silicone breast injections eventually led to a mastectomy. After quitting life on the Vegas Strip, she wound up in the Midwest, running a cleaning service.
McCormick said Eppolito told her that she could earn $130,000 to $160,000 from the sale of her script to Hollywood. He didn't guarantee it, but said it was 99.9 percent certain, McCormick recalled.
The script hasn't sold, she said, and the crush of the bank loan and credit card payments forced her to file for bankruptcy and to lose her business. She flew to New York for the first week of the trial, which began March 13, and listened with rapt attention. McCormick also said she confronted Eppolito and berated him outside court for promising her the moon.
"I wrote it four times for her," Eppolito told Newsday about the McCormick script. "It didn't go fast enough for her."
The federal judge in the "Mafia Cops" trial, Jack B. Weinstein, was an officer in the Navy during World War II and runs his courtroom on a brisk schedule that leaves reporters, lawyers and spectators feeling like they are on a forced march. What was expected to be a six-to-10-week trial could be over in four.
So punishing has been the 55-minute to 60-minute lunch period Weinstein enforces that defense attorney Bruce Cutler, who is representing Eppolito, one day asked for 10 more minutes. Weinstein, 85, who seems to thrive on the rapid trial pace, relented with a smile. Weinstein does allow mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks during which the jurors are served drinks and snacks. During those 10- or 15-minute breaks, Weinstein has been spotted at the courthouse snack bar getting a bag of nuts for his own pick-me-up.
Speaking of lunch, the two defendants spend their hour differently. Eppolito delights news photographers by walking outside the courthouse to the Park Plaza diner just across Cadman Plaza Park. His wife, Fran, is always with him. He likes pastrami on rye with mustard. By contrast, Caracappa seems to take his repast inside the new Brooklyn federal court building and never ventures outside during the noon hour.
Judge Weinstein referred last week to a ticking time bomb in the "Mafia Cops" case: a nettlesome statute of limitations problem. Simply put, there is the possibility that the racketeering conspiracy charged in the case might prove to be outside the five-year statute of limitations. Prosecutors contend that a 2004 drug charge that is also part of the case solves that problem. They also maintain that a continuous coverup by Eppolito and Caracappa brings the case well within the limitation date of March 9, 2000.
However, Weinstein is allowing defense attorneys in the case to propose a charge to the jury on the statute of limitations defense. Bettina Schein, who is co-counsel for Eppolito, said that is expected to be filed today. Rae Koshetz, co-counsel for Caracappa, said she expects to reveal today whether her client will take the stand. Cutler has already said Eppolito won't testify.
Thanks to Anthony M. DeStefano
Whatever Jane McCormick did in Las Vegas during her wild days as a party girl (and the way she remembers things, she did a lot) certainly hasn't stayed there.
A brassy blonde who bears a resemblance to actress Doris Roberts of "Everybody Loves Raymond," McCormick, 65, is one of the most unusual spectators to show up at the "Mafia Cops" trial in Brooklyn federal court. She also hasn't been quiet about the $45,000 beef she has with one of the defendants, ex-NYPD detective Louis Eppolito, 57, who is on trial for racketeering, along with his former partner, Stephen Caracappa, 64.
McCormick, who is living on Social Security disability in Minnesota, said the money she paid Eppolito in 2002 represented a fee to write a film script about her life.
She paid him to write about her life? Isn't it usually the other way around? "I was stupid," McCormick now says in retrospect.
Actually, trial testimony showed that Eppolito, who got a taste for the movie business by doing bit roles in films such as "GoodFellas," regularly peddled the idea of raising money by getting fees from people to write scripts for them.
Seventy-five thousand dollars was the standard Eppolito pitch, said witness Stephen Corso. In McCormick's case, she said that when she balked at that price tag, Eppolito knocked it down to $45,000, an amount that McCormick raised through a bank loan and $10,000 cash advance from her credit card.
"He filled my head with delusion," McCormick said.
They way she tells it, there was a lot of material for a racy film. According to McCormick, she spent time as a prostitute in the 1960s in Las Vegas and was arm candy for the likes of Frank Sinatra. She caroused with the Rat Pack and knew mobsters. Silicone breast injections eventually led to a mastectomy. After quitting life on the Vegas Strip, she wound up in the Midwest, running a cleaning service.
McCormick said Eppolito told her that she could earn $130,000 to $160,000 from the sale of her script to Hollywood. He didn't guarantee it, but said it was 99.9 percent certain, McCormick recalled.
The script hasn't sold, she said, and the crush of the bank loan and credit card payments forced her to file for bankruptcy and to lose her business. She flew to New York for the first week of the trial, which began March 13, and listened with rapt attention. McCormick also said she confronted Eppolito and berated him outside court for promising her the moon.
"I wrote it four times for her," Eppolito told Newsday about the McCormick script. "It didn't go fast enough for her."
The federal judge in the "Mafia Cops" trial, Jack B. Weinstein, was an officer in the Navy during World War II and runs his courtroom on a brisk schedule that leaves reporters, lawyers and spectators feeling like they are on a forced march. What was expected to be a six-to-10-week trial could be over in four.
So punishing has been the 55-minute to 60-minute lunch period Weinstein enforces that defense attorney Bruce Cutler, who is representing Eppolito, one day asked for 10 more minutes. Weinstein, 85, who seems to thrive on the rapid trial pace, relented with a smile. Weinstein does allow mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks during which the jurors are served drinks and snacks. During those 10- or 15-minute breaks, Weinstein has been spotted at the courthouse snack bar getting a bag of nuts for his own pick-me-up.
Speaking of lunch, the two defendants spend their hour differently. Eppolito delights news photographers by walking outside the courthouse to the Park Plaza diner just across Cadman Plaza Park. His wife, Fran, is always with him. He likes pastrami on rye with mustard. By contrast, Caracappa seems to take his repast inside the new Brooklyn federal court building and never ventures outside during the noon hour.
Judge Weinstein referred last week to a ticking time bomb in the "Mafia Cops" case: a nettlesome statute of limitations problem. Simply put, there is the possibility that the racketeering conspiracy charged in the case might prove to be outside the five-year statute of limitations. Prosecutors contend that a 2004 drug charge that is also part of the case solves that problem. They also maintain that a continuous coverup by Eppolito and Caracappa brings the case well within the limitation date of March 9, 2000.
However, Weinstein is allowing defense attorneys in the case to propose a charge to the jury on the statute of limitations defense. Bettina Schein, who is co-counsel for Eppolito, said that is expected to be filed today. Rae Koshetz, co-counsel for Caracappa, said she expects to reveal today whether her client will take the stand. Cutler has already said Eppolito won't testify.
Thanks to Anthony M. DeStefano
Monday, March 27, 2006
'Mafia Cops' Trial Has Lots of Theatrics
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
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
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