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Mob Cops
Stuck in Clink
By Zach Haberman
New York Post
July 26, 2006
 The
federal judge who said he was forced to let two former NYPD
detectives off the hook for being murderous Mafia moles refused to
let them walk free yesterday.
Mob cops Louis Eppolito and
Stephen Caracappa have been on 23-hour-a-day lockdown in the
Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center since a jury convicted them
in April of being hit men for the Luchese crime family.
JAIL, NOT BAIL:
Disgraced ex-Detectives
And even though
Brooklyn federal court
Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito
Judge Jack
Weinstein tossed out that
(above) must remain in prison. Photo: AP
Weinstein tossed
out that conviction last month, the duo will have to stay
behind bars, at least for the time being, Weinstein ruled at their
bail hearing yesterday.
"The weight of evidence
showing guilt of these crimes is not insubstantial," said Weinstein,
who tossed the pair's conviction for committing eight gangland
murders and kidnapping between 1986 and 1990 because the statute of
limitations had run out.
The judge said the duo -
considered two of the dirtiest cops in the city's history after
their conviction, which also included more recent drug-dealing
charges in Las Vegas - aren't going anywhere.
They "have a high incentive
to flee, given that they have been publicly shamed - and as a result
will be ostracized - after a trial at which they were proven guilty
of heinous criminal acts," he said of the ex-cops.
Eppolito and Caracappa sat
emotionless as Weinstein announced, "Bail is denied."
Prosecutors from the
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office said the evidence against the pair
requires they stay behind bars.
"The defendants are
murderers who sold their badges for money," said Prosecutor Daniel
Wenner, adding that the pair might try to tamper with witnesses if
let loose.
The two former detectives
will continue to sit in prison while an appellate court decides
whether to uphold Weinstein's decision and until they face a retrial
on charges they took part in a methamphetamine deal in Las Vegas.
"Obviously, we're very
disappointed," said Caracappa's lawyer, Daniel Nobel, who tried
unsuccessfully to have his client moved out of the same cramped cell
as his partner-in-crime and into a general population unit at
another lockup.
Asked if the close quarters
affected their relationship, Nobel replied, "I dare say most
marriages would flounder under similar conditions."
Beth Citron, one of
Eppolito's lawyers, said he whispered to her, "I don't want to go
into general population."
"I'm sure every single
inmate would like a go at a cop convicted of committing crimes using
his badge," Citron added.
No relatives of the
disgraced detectives' victims were in the courtroom, but they said
afterward they were satisfied with the decision.
"I'm very relieved that my
father's proven killers are still in jail," said Michal Weinstein,
whose dad, Israel Greenwald, was kidnapped by the cops in 1986
before being murdered and buried in a concrete grave until being
unearthed last year.
Additional reporting by
Alex Ginsberg
He Acted
'Like a Man'
Judge Right to Nix Conviction, Says
Eppolito
By Greg B. Smith
New York Daily News
July 9, 2006
In the upside-down world of
the Mafia cops, Louis Eppolito has a message for the judge who
reversed his murder conviction but nevertheless called him a killer:
thanks for being a man.
In an interview from the
Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, Eppolito admitted he was
"completely stunned" by Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein's
sudden decision last month to toss out a jury's conviction of
Eppolito and his former partner, Stephen Caracappa.
"He stood up like a man,
and he went right for the law. I don't think I would have gotten the
opportunity with another judge," Eppolito said. "I'm grateful that
the judge did this."
And yet he remains upset,
noting what many have termed the contradictory nature of the judge's
ruling.
Weinstein ruled that
prosecutors failed to bring a conspiracy case against the two
ex-cops within the five-year statute of limitations. But at the same
time, he called the evidence "overwhelming" that in the 1980s and
early 1990s, the cops were paid thousands of dollars to commit
numerous "heinous acts" for the mob.
He let stand a far less
serious drug-related charge that occurred in 2005.
"The judge's statement is
that he believes I'm guilty. That's fine with me. I just wish I
could sit with him and show him," Eppolito said. "I wanted to prove
myself totally.... We won on the statute of limitations. I got a
wife and kids - they look at me like I'm a god. Now they have to
look at me like I'm a murderer? A multiple murderer?"
Eppolito made the comments
as he waited to ask Weinstein to free him on bail and allow him to
return to his Las Vegas home. Meanwhile, he was aware federal
prosecutors say they'll appeal Weinstein's ruling and almost
certainly seek to further prosecute both ex-cops.
Sitting in 23-hour lockdown
with Caracappa as his cellmate, Eppolito now has a darker theory of
why he and his friend were charged with what's been labeled the
worst crime in the New York City Police Department's history.
Before the conviction was
reversed, Eppolito called the case against him a "perfect frame" by
mob killer Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso and his go-between to the cops,
drug dealer Burt Kaplan. Now, he said, he thinks "there is a bigger
conspiracy here.
"I found it," he said.
"There are things here, when I get out, your head's going to spin
around. There was always somebody behind this case pulling the
strings of the marionettes."
He implies that the FBI and
the NYPD conspired against him, although he will not say precisely
how he knows this.
"They conspired, and
there's a reason for it and I know it, but I can't say it because I
can't prove it," he said.
He continued to insist
there is much evidence the jury and the judge did not see that would
clear him and Caracappa, including numerous inconsistencies among
the statements of government informants and the NYPD's refusal to
release records he felt could provide them with an alibi.
Because of this, he said,
he could understand Weinstein's pointed declaration that both men
are guilty. That's because, in Eppolito's mind, Weinstein was acting
based on an incomplete record.
"I'm not blaming the
judge," Eppolito said. "The judge based his opinion solely and only
on what he heard. Our lawyers never brought a case for us. I believe
that I could have brought a case that those acts, as heinous as they
are, we never did them."
He expressed this view
despite the judge's harsh declarations about Eppolito during a
recent posttrial hearing to determine whether lawyers Bruce Cutler
and Edward Hayes offered effective counsel during the trial.
Weinstein found both lawyers did their jobs, but castigated Eppolito,
who took the stand and admitted he would lie if it would help him
make a movie.
"I know that the judge
doesn't like me," he said. "I have no qualms about that."
On July 24, lawyer Joseph
Bondy for Eppolito and Daniel Nobel for Caracappa will argue that
both men should be released immediately because technically,
regardless of the outcome of the appeal, they currently face only
the far less serious, drug-related charges.
"I was looking at life
imprisonment," Eppolito said. "Now I'm not."
Mother's Plea to Bloomberg
She Lost Innocent Son in
Botched-rubout Tragedy
New York Daily News
July 3, 2006
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| "I have seen how you always seem to want
to do the fair thing," Pauline Pipitone writes in letter urging
Mayor Bloomberg to intercede. |
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Nicky Guido's family wants to know when it'll get justice - and his
mother is looking to Mayor Bloomberg for help.
The 26-year-old Brooklyn
man was slain on Christmas Day 1986, a victim of mistaken identity
in a rubout linked to the so-called Mafia Cops case.
The Guido family was struck
another blow Friday when the murder convictions against disgraced
former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were
thrown out on a technicality.
"I'm shocked and
disappointed," Guido's brother Mike told Daily News columnist Denis
Hamill. "I thought justice had finally been served."
Another legal technicality
is adding to the family's pain: The city is trying to shoot down the
family's wrongful-death suit, citing the statute of limitations,
which is three years under federal law and two under state law.
The Guido killing wasn't
tied to the Mafia Cops case until last year.
In a letter to Bloomberg
she shared with The News, 78-year-old Pauline Pipitone
heartbreakingly describes the agony of her loss.
And though she asks the
mayor to step in and give her some legal relief, she writes of her
son, "No amount of money in the world will bring him back to me."
Exclusive look at
heartrending letter to mayor
Dear Mayor
Bloomberg:
My name is Pauline
Pipitone. When I was married to my first husband, my last name was
Guido. I am 78 years old and have lived in New York City for my
whole life. Brooklyn to be exact.
I am sure you have heard my
story by now but I wanted to write this letter to you so that I can
be sure that you hear it from my side. No matter what you do - or
don't do - because of my telling it to you, it makes me feel a
little better just knowing that I am doing this.
On Christmas Day 1986 my
son Nicholas was shot and killed outside my house while I was
washing the holiday dishes. He was 26 at the time and had gone
outside to show his uncle a new car that he had bought. He loved
that car and loved being proud of it. He lived at home with us and
with his older brother Michael. He had a job installing telephones
and he smoked cigarettes sometimes. I used to give him a hard time
about that as a mother would and now I wish I hadn't.
We had, as we usually did,
a lot of people at our house on 17th St. that day. My life changed
in that moment and a lot of time has passed since. I had almost 19
years to try to deal with it and sometimes I thought I had. But
there hasn't been a day that I haven't thought of him and no one can
tell me that my husband died in 1989 from anything but a broken
heart.
But that is not the end of
my story because in March of last year, Eyewitness News reported
that two police detectives had been arrested for providing
information to a Mafia boss so that he could get his revenge against
men who had threatened him.
I suppose that if you have
heard my story at all before now, you also know that my son was the
one person who this mobster, based upon Nicky's name being given to
him by Detective Louis Eppolito and Detective Stephen Caracappa, was
mistaken for another man who had the same name.
Can you imagine how I felt
when I learned this in 2005? Sure, the District Attorney's office in
Brooklyn had called us not too long after Nicky was killed to tell
us that the "real" Nicholas Guido was being prosecuted and that we
shouldn't think that our Nicky was mixed up with that life in any
way. Then all those years went by.
I remember running out to
the street that day, seeing him laying against the driver's seat in
the car. They told me that he had probably tried to move over to try
to protect his uncle who was sitting next to him in the front seat.
He was wearing a new white
jacket he had just gotten for Christmas that year. Seeing the red
against the white - I still won't wear anything white. I held his
hand when I went to him and I could feel it getting cold. It is very
hard for me to write this letter but I feel like I have to do it.
They tell me that there is
no word in the English language to describe a parent who loses a
child. If you lose your parents, you are an orphan but there is no
word for what I became when I lost my son.
The next thing I knew after
I heard the news that these two policemen had been arrested was that
I was testifying at their criminal trial explaining what happened
that day. I couldn't believe it. It all came back after so much time
and so many tears and I have been forced to live it all again, to
begin to try to deal with it again now. I really wasn't interested
in going to court and telling my story but I was told that the
prosecutors could make me if I didn't come on my own.
I didn't go to their
sentencing because I was told that I didn't have to. My family and I
have kept this to ourselves as much as we could even though you
could imagine how the press and newspapers are always interested in
talking to me. There are even people writing books about it. I
haven't talked to any of them but now I am talking to you.
With all respect to other
men who have been mayor, I don't think I could have done this except
for the fact that you represent New York now. I have seen how you
always seem to want to do the fair thing.
Now, the city through its
lawyers are saying that the claim that I am making to try to get
some justice is too late because so much time has passed. Part of my
claim has already been dismissed and the judge said that it was
because I should have brought it sooner. Sooner?
The judge said this was
like the cases that involved the priests and the young boys which
have been thrown out of court. How could he say this? They knew who
had done wrong to them. How could I have known? And who could have
ever told me except for the Police Department?
And how could anyone
believe that the city didn't know about how these detectives were
operating? How they were using police information. How they were
doing it over a long period of time and how they were being paid by
crime people for the information only someone in their job could
possibly have provided.
It makes no sense to me and
I am afraid that the delay that is caused while I am forced to wait
for an appeals court to review the case again means that I won't be
here to see justice done while they drag the lawsuits out. Some
people tell me that is their way of doing things but I don't think
you are a man who would let that happen.
While I respect the other
victims' families who have made their own claims for the same
reasons, none of the family members they lost were the incorrect
victim like my Nicky was.
No amount of money in the
world will bring him back to me. No amount of money could replace a
life lost to a mother because of what was done by those men who were
allowed to use their police shields to do horrible things. And if I
could, I would gladly give anything I get back to you if I could
have the last 20 years back with my son.
Pauline Pipitone
The Law
Is Bigger than One Shocking Ruling in Brooklyn
Editorial
New York Daily News
July 2, 2006
We approach our nation's
birthday after what seemed a very good week for some very bad guys
of two very different sorts.
First, on Wednesday,
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration does not
have the legal authority to conduct military tribunals for Osama Bin
Laden's former driver and other suspected Al Qaeda terrorists.
Then, on Friday, Brooklyn
Federal Judge Jack Weinstein tossed out the conviction of two former
NYPD detectives even though he believed they were guilty of
committing numerous gangland murders.
"It will undoubtedly appear
peculiar to many people that heinous criminals such as the
defendants, having been found guilty on overwhelming evidence of the
most despicable crimes of violence and treachery, should go
unwhipped of justice," Weinstein said in his decision. "Yet, our
Constitution, statute and morality require that we be ruled by the
law, not by vindictiveness."
Weinstein could have just
as easily been talking about the Al Qaeda case as he then cited
Ex Parte Milligan. This was a Civil War case where the Supreme
Court ruled that a civilian named Lambden Milligan should not have
been tried before a military tribunal.
"Even during the great
emergency of the Civil War, the courts rejected the theory that the
rule of law could be twisted to meet the exigencies of the moment,"
Weinstein noted.
But, where Milligan managed
to elude the hangman and eventually escape punishment altogether,
Bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, and the other truly
dangerous types from our present war are certain to remain in
custody.
And, even if the Court of
Appeals does not reinstate the conviction of "Mafia Cops" Louis
Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, their crimes remain, and they are
not even close to home free.
That is of little immediate
comfort to the victims' relatives, but they should not direct their
anger at the judge or what one grieving daughter called "the whole
criminal justice system."
Weinstein warned early on
that he was dubious of the government's attempt to circumvent the
five-year statute of limitations on racketeering cases by tacking on
unrelated drug charges. He described the issue as "a ticking time
bomb that can be exploded at any time."
The feds already had
received a much earlier warning from the Brooklyn district
attorney's office, which proposed the two ex-cops be prosecuted in
state court on murder charges, for which there is no statute of
limitation. Edward Hayes, the attorney who represented Caracappa at
trial, notes that the evidence was particularly strong in the
killing of Israel Greenwald.
"They had the guy who
ordered the killing, they had the guy who buried the body and they
had the body," Hayes said on Friday. "They would have had a
legitimate murder case."
But the star witness was
doing heavy time in federal prison, and the federal prosecutors held
the keys. The Brooklyn district attorney's office seems to have had
little choice but to go along.
If the verdict in federal
court is not reinstated, the Brooklyn district attorney's office
will have a chance to prosecute the Mafia Cops, as it originally
hoped.
At the same time, the Bush
administration will no doubt devise a legal way to bring the Al
Qaeda killers to justice.
And, we will have proven
once again to be a people who ultimately honor the law even under
the most extreme provocation, even when facing purest evil. We will
still be living by our founding principles, such as determined that
Civil War case cited by Weinstein.
"The Constitution of the
United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in
peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of
men, at all times, under all circumstances," the Supreme Court held
back then.
In truth, what seemed a
very good week for the bad guys marked the approaching anniversary
of 230 very good years for the good guys. We arrive at our nation's
230th birthday still with what our founders intended us to be on
that first Independence Day - a country where the only king is the
law.
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A
Judge's 'Slap in Face'
By Jonathan Lemire and
Adam Lisberg
New York Daily News
July 2, 2006
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| Disgraced detective Stephen Caracappa
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Jurors who found the Mafia cops guilty three months ago told the
Daily News yesterday they were shocked that the judge threw out
their verdict on a technicality.
"It was like a slap in
the face. I don't think 12 people could not understand the
letter of the law," said one juror, a 50-year-old Long Island
man. "These guys may just get off, from the way it looks. And
the thing is, they did it. They did it!"
Disgraced detectives
Stephen Caracappa, 64, and Louis Eppolito, 57, got life
sentences after the jury found them guilty of being hit men for
the Luchese crime family - but Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack
Weinstein threw out the verdict Friday.
"I feel like with the
information we had, we did what we thought was right," said
another Long Island juror, a 63-year-old man. "He did what he
thought he had to do, and that's his decision."
To win a conspiracy
conviction within the five-year statute of limitations,
prosecutors tried to show the two men kept breaking the law by
dealing drugs after they retired to Las Vegas. Weinstein said
prosecutors stretched the idea of a conspiracy too far - but
jurors said they wrestled with that question for hours before
reaching the opposite conclusion.
"I know we didn't
misunderstand it. The conspiracy went on," the 50-year-old said.
"If they can't get a conviction on that, I give up on the
justice system."
Added the 63-year-old
juror: "I don't know why they waited until the statute was up
before they brought \[charges\], but we figured they got it in
under the wire."
The jurors sat as an
anonymous panel through three weeks of testimony before making
their decision after just 10 hours of deliberations. Yesterday,
they all requested that their names not be printed before they
would talk about the ruling.
"\[Weinstein is\] a
very smart man, but I'm a little confused about it - a little
upset about it," said a 60-year-old alternate juror from Long
Island who attended the entire trial but did not vote on the
verdict. "We should have probably known upfront that this was
going to happen if this was a problem."
Weinstein said last
week there was no doubt the cops were killers, and rejected
.requests for new trials because of allegedly bad work by their
lawyers. But he had earlier expressed strong reservations about
the statute of limitations issue, even urging feds last August
to scrap the racketeering case and charge the ex-cops with
murder-for-hire on .behalf of the mob.
Because he waited until
after the verdict to issue his ruling, prosecutors can appeal it
- and they say they will.
"There was a conspiracy
here. There was a conspiracy even when these guys left the
force," insisted the 50-year-old. "That was the first thing we
hit head-on \[in deliberations\]."
Caracappa received
details of the stunning news yesterday .behind bars at
Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, where he shares a cell
with .Eppolito. "Mr. Caracappa is a realistic man," said Dan
Noble, his new lawyer. "Obviously he's pleased with the
decision, but this is just one stage along the way."
Mob-cop Judge Is 'Pushing Envelope'
By Zach Haberman and
Mark Bulliet
New York Post
July 2, 2006
 The
judge who set the mob cops free on a technicality is considered
a great legal mind who is never afraid to push the envelope, but
is firm in his belief that the law is the law no matter who is
in the dock.
"Jack Weinstein is one
of the great judges of our time in creativity and intellect and
in using the legal process to achieve justice," said former
federal prosecutor Jonathan Sack. "He does what he thinks is
right under the law."
To Weinstein, freeing
the murderous duo of Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito was
just as vital as
CARACAPPA
sending
mob boss Vinny "The Chin" Gigante up the
Conviction overturned
river or
forcing chemical companies to pay Vietnam veterans millions for
injuries suffered from Agent Orange - because the law said so.
"A judge embraces his
professional life when he is prepared to fight - and be
criticized and reversed - in striving for justice," he wrote in
2004 for the Fordham Urban Law Journal.
"The process is gut
wrenching. To society, it is often confounding."
Despite the dramatic
turn of events, Caracappa's lawyer said yesterday his client is
bracing for a legal war in the wake of Weinstein's bombshell
decision to throw out the pair's racketeering convictions.
"Obviously, this is an
enormous step in the case for Mr. Caracappa," said his lawyer,
Daniel Nobel, after a one-hour meeting at the Brooklyn federal
lockup, the Metropolitan Detention Center.
"But it's like having a
good first quarter; there's a great deal down the road."
Nobel said he plans to
make an application for bail.
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Victims' Kin Call Ruling 'So Absurd'
By Greg B. Smith
New York Daily News
July 1, 2006
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| Body of Nicholas Guido lies in car in
Brooklyn on Christmas Day 1986. Guido was slain by mistake
because he had the same name as a mob target's.
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Anger and disbelief.
That's how families of
the murder victims reacted after a judge tossed the Mafia cops'
convictions despite concluding they had committed some of the
most heinous crimes he'd ever seen.
"I never heard of
anything so stupid," said Betty Hydell, whose son Jimmy was
kidnapped and turned over to a mob hit man in 1986. "I thought
this was all over."
"We were surprised to
hear this. I'm sure the family is going to be upset," said Mark
Longo, an attorney representing the family of Nicholas Guido, a
telephone installer who was killed by mistake on Christmas Day
1986.
In April, a jury
convicted Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa on all counts in
a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy that prosecutors say dated to
their days as a decorated NYPD detectives.
They were found guilty
of participating in eight murders, one kidnapping and an
attempted murder - as well leaking the names of informers to the
mob, and warning Luchese crime family gangsters when they were
about to be busted.
Brooklyn Federal Judge
Jack Weinstein threw out the racketeering conviction because he
found prosecutors failed to show the cops participated in a
continuing conspiracy into 2000 - the statute of limitations
cutoff.
But the legal
distinctions in Weinstein's ruling carried little weight with
the victims' kin.
Hydell's daughter,
Linda, was the last person to talk to her brother the day he was
kidnapped and killed in September 1986.
She called yesterday's
ruling "so absurd it's not even funny."
"It's gotta end
somewhere. They were convicted on 72 counts. What are people
going to say?" she said. "There's no closure on this for my
family. It just keeps getting worse and worse and worse."
There was similar
reaction from the family of Israel Greenwald, a jeweler who was
murdered because a mob associate feared he would become an FBI
informer.
Greenwald's wife, Leah,
said she respected the judge's decision but said she was upset
because next week the two cops are expected to ask the judge to
be released on bail.
"Of course we are upset
because we do not want them to be free after knowing that they
are guilty," she said. "In our minds they are guilty, and we
want them to be in jail."
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Glorious New Day for Family of Ex-cop
By Michelle Caruso
New York Daily News
July 1, 2006
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When Louis Eppolito's
wife and daughters got word that his convictions were
overturned, "it was like the world stopped," his eldest
daughter told the Daily News yesterday.
"We were stunned.
We had not been given much reason to hope," Andrea Eppolito
said of the judge's ruling.
Then there were
free-flowing tears of joy during an emotional three-way
conference call among Andrea, 29, her mother, Fran, and
sister Deanna, 28.
"We were all
crying, my mother, my sister and me. It was like everything
was in slow motion. We are so elated. This is such a
blessing," Andrea said.
"My mother just
kept saying, 'He's gonna come home. He's coming home! He's
coming home!' over and over. The world is good, more than
good," she added.
Andrea knows her
father still has a big fight on his hands. He will first
have to apply for release on bail while awaiting retrial on
federal money-laundering and drug charges, and there's no
guarantee he'll get it.
"We're going to try
and hope for bail. When my father was out on bail before, he
obeyed all the terms and conditions, so that should count in
his favor," she said.
And if he comes
home, "We will shut the doors and sit together as a family
for some quiet personal time to reflect, as a family. Then
afterwards, there will be a party," she said.
Eppolito said she
is optimistic about the retrial ahead, even though it will
mean more stress, legal fees and time. But she says she
thinks the ex-cop's new lawyer, Joseph Bondy, will give the
case 100%.
"I believe in my
father. I believe in Joe Bondy and I believe in the law. We
are so grateful to have a second chance."
"We will fight as a
family, the way we always have. We'll fight until it's
done," she said.
Eppolito says she
is not daunted by the judge's contention that, even though
he was legally bound to toss the convictions, he still
thinks her father and his co-defendant, Stephen Caracappa,
are guilty of murders and disgracing their police shields.
"If that is the
judge's personal opinion, I am grateful that he upheld the
law and his integrity," she said.
"I realize my
father will never again be considered an innocent man. Some
people will always believe the story told by the
government's witnesses," she said.
"But he is
innocent, and I want him to be vindicated. I want him
sitting on the couch with his wife and kids and his dog,
enjoying his old age. He spent two decades on the police
force. He's earned it," she said |
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Judge
Rubs out Mob Cops Verdict
Overturns Convictions on Time Technicality
By John Marzulli
New York Daily News
June 30, 2006
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| Louis Eppolito |
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Despite having murdered, maimed and sold out informants to
blood-thirsty mobsters, the Mafia cops' racketeering conviction
was stunningly overturned yesterday - all because they
apparently steered clear of the mob for the last five years.
The ruling left
prosecutors and victims' relatives speechless, and even seemed
to surprise allies of ex-NYPD Detectives Louis Eppolito. and
Stephen Caracappa.
Brooklyn Federal Judge
Jack Weinstein acknowledged there was no doubt the disgraced duo
were hit men for the mob - guilty of being the most corrupt cops
in NYPD history.
Yet he still threw out
the convictions, which carried life sentences, on a
technicality.
"The evidence at trial
overwhelmingly established the defendants' participation in a
large number of heinous and violent crimes," Weinstein, 84,
wrote.
"Nevertheless . . . the
five-year statute of limitations mandates granting the
defendants a judgment of acquittal on the key charge against
them: racketeering conspiracy," a decision that the judge
admitted would appear "peculiar to many people."
Federal prosecutors
vowed to appeal the ruling; Weinstein indicated that if he is
reversed, the Mafia cops will begin their life sentences
immediately.
For now, they will
remain behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center in
Brooklyn until Weinstein hears a likely bail application,
sometime after he returns from vacation July 21.
Eppolito's new lawyer,
Joseph Bondy, broke the staggering news to his client at the
jail last night.
Bondy said a weeping
Eppolito embraced him and said, "I feel as though my prayers
were answered and that God is my true judge. I was afraid that I
was going to spend the rest of my life in jail."
Eppolito told Bondy he
would tell Caracappa what happened when he got back to the cell
they share. Caracappa's lawyer isn't scheduled to see him until
today.
A federal jury in April
convicted Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, of participating in
eight gangland murders.
The racketeering
indictment charged that Eppolito and Caracappa. went on the
payroll of the Luchese crime family in the 1980s in Brooklyn. It
specified that the duo committed or helped commit the slayings
between 1986 and 1990.
Despite a lull in their
criminal activity in the late 1990s, their criminal enterprise
resumed last year in Las Vegas, where they had settled after
their retirement, the indictment charged.
The ex-cops' new legal
team sought to overturn the verdict on two fronts: poor legal
representation and the five-year statute of limitations.
Prosecutors seemed
unprepared for Weinstein's ruling - and perhaps with good
reason.
Earlier this month,
Weinstein left no doubt at a sentencing hearing that he was
convinced of both defendants' guilt. Then, last week, after
Eppolito testified at a hearing for a new trial, the judge
called him an immoral liar.
But Weinstein warned
prosecutors on multiple occasions that he had serious misgivings
about their theory connecting the Mafia cops' criminal
activities in Brooklyn to their money laundering and drug crimes
in Las Vegas.
Prosecutors noted
yesterday that the jurors "specifically found that the
defendants' heinous crimes were committed within the statute of
limitations," according to a statement from Robert Nardoza, a
spokesman for Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf.
But Weinstein concluded
that the conspiracy ended when both detectives retired from the
force.
The decision was
vindication of sorts for the original defense attorneys, Bruce
Cutler and Edward Hayes, who were blamed by their clients for
the conviction.
"I'm happy that we have
a courageous Judge Weinstein to do the right thing," Cutler said
last night.
And in their exclusive
gated community in Las Vegas, neighbors and friends crowded
Caracappa's home to watch news reports of the legal victory on
CNN.
"I know my husband will
be unhappy that he's exonerated on a technicality," said
Caracappa's wife, Monica. "But I will take my husband home any
way I can."
Across the street, Fran
Eppolito said she was "overjoyed" by the decision, though
mindful the case is far from over. "I am very hopeful now, the
most hopeful I've been in a long time. I just hope this works
out in Lou's favor."
Eppolito and Caracappa
had been suspected of being mob hit men since former Luchese
underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso ratted them out in 1994,
revealing they had been leaking secret information to him for
years.
Casso self-destructed
as a witness, and it took authorities 10 years to flip jailed
Luchese associate and Mafia cops go-between Burton Kaplan. The
feds, rather than the Brooklyn district attorney, prosecuted the
case because the rules of evidence would permit uncorroborated
testimony by Kaplan. and other cooperating witnesses.
Brooklyn prosecutors
now will await the U.S. Court of Appeals' decision before
deciding whether to pursue state murder charges against the
Mafia cops, said spokesman Jerry Schmetterer.
If Weinstein had
dismissed the racketeering conspiracy charge before the verdict,
the government would not be able to appeal, sources said.
Door
Left Wide Open for Appeal
By Zach Haberman
New York Post
July 1, 2006
The timing of the
judge's astonishing decision to toss out the conviction of the
mob cops left the door open for prosecutors to appeal the ruling
to a higher court.
That option would have
been wiped out if Brooklyn federal Judge Jack Weinstein ruled
during trial that the five-year statute of limitations on a
racketeering indictment presented a problem, according to legal
experts.
If he had thrown out
the murder charges against Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa
after the jury already heard all the evidence - but before the
verdict was rendered - all appellate options would have been
wiped out because of the constitutional ban on double jeopardy.
"What he's really doing
by this process is letting the government try to salvage this
case in the Court of Appeals," said Jonathan Sack, former head
of the criminal division at the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office.
Sack said the judge
"let the case play out" so the jury could decide if the charges
fell within the statute of limitations - which says that a crime
must be committed within five years of the indictment being
unsealed.
"The defense won, but
it's going to have a really hard time on appeal," said Randy
Mastro, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor.
Judge: Killer Mob Cop Duo Guilty as Sin -
& I Have to Let Them Walk
By Zach Haberman
New York Post
July 1, 2006
 A
judge says he has no choice but to let the mob cops get away
with murder.
In a bombshell
decision, Brooklyn federal court Judge Jack Weinstein yesterday
tossed out on a legal technicality the racketeering conspiracy
conviction against ex-NYPD Detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen
Caracappa for acting as mob moles and hit men while wearing
their gold shields.
The judge said that
evidence presented at trial pointed heavily toward the disgraced
duo kidnapping and murdering for Luchese crime
LOUIS EPPOLITO
family
underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Statute-of-limitations win.
between
1986 and 1990. But the five-year
Photo: Matthew McDermott
statute of limitations has expired on those charges, he said.
"The evidence presented
at trial overwhelmingly established the defendants'
participation in a large number of heinous and violent crimes,
including eight murders," Weinstein said in the 77-page
decision.
"They kidnapped,
murdered and assisted kidnappers and murderers, all while sworn
to protect the public against such crimes," the judge said,
apparently agreeing with the jury's findings.
"Nevertheless, an
extended trial, evidentiary hearings, briefings and argument
establishes that the five-year statute of limitations mandates
granting the defendants a judgment of acquittal on the key
charge against them - racketeering conspiracy."
Prosecutors vowed to
appeal - and sources said the Brooklyn DA's office is mulling
whether to charge them with murder in state court.
Highly decorated
detectives Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were convicted in
April of helping Casso commit eight gangland slayings -
including the kidnapping of diamond dealer Israel Greenwald in
1986.
The two also were found
guilty of handing Gambino family associate James Hydell over to
Casso, who tortured and killed him for an attempted hit on the
Mafia big's life.
When the mob cops were
sentenced to life in prison on June 5, Weinstein said: "This is
probably the most heinous series of crimes ever tried in this
courthouse."
The surprise ruling
yesterday brought Eppolito's daughter, Andrea, to tears when she
heard the news from Eppolito's new lawyer, Joseph Bondy.
"I'm ecstatic and
elated," she told The Post. "We've always maintained his
innocence. We've always believed in him."
"This is the first step
in getting my father back in my life," Andrea, 29, said in a
telephone interview from Las Vegas.
"This is such a victory
for my father."
Bruce Cutler and Ed
Hayes, who represented the pair at trial, argued that the
statute of limitations negated the crimes - whether they
committed them or not.
Weinstein apparently
agreed with them, saying , "The conspiracy that began in New
York in the 1980s had come to a definite close" when the pair
moved to Las Vegas in the mid-1990s. While there, Eppolito
allegedly laundered drug money from mob associate Burton Kaplan.
"The defendants no
longer had access to confidential law enforcement information
and were no longer in contact with their old associates in the
Luchese crime family" in Vegas, Weinstein wrote.
"Their enterprise had
effectively been put out of business by their own retirements
and their compatriots' arrest," he said, referring to Casso and
Kaplan, who testified at trial that he was the go-between for
the cops and Casso.
Caracappa's new lawyer,
Daniel Nobel, said his client had not yet been told the good
news, but said it should not be considered a shock.
"Judge Weinstein
repeatedly cautioned [the prosecutors] that they risk exactly
this result," said Nobel, noting that the judge warned them
numerous times throughout the trial that he was irked by the
statute-of-limitations issue.
When Weinstein released
them on bail the first time, he called the connection between
the murder charges and the Las Vegas money-laundering and drug
charges "very thin."
Yesterday, the judge
said the jury's verdict on the money-laundering and drug-dealing
charges resulted from a "spillover prejudice" of the murder
charges and ordered a retrial for those counts. He did not
provide a definitive date for the new trial.
The retrial would only
address the charges stemming from their years in Las Vegas. But
sources said Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes is mulling the
possibility of trying the mob cops for murder in state court,
where no statute of limitations exists on murder.
Eppolito's lawyer said
his client still doesn't know about the decision.
"I would imagine he
would think it's April Fool's Day or that I'm joking with him,"
said Bondy, adding that he plans to make a motion to get
Eppolito sprung on bail.
Weinstein had released
the pair on $5 million bail last July, when they were facing
murder charges, so both lawyers believe they have a good shot of
getting them out of Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center.
They have been stuck in the same cell on 23-hours-a-day
lockdown.
The feds are sticking
to their guns.
"The jury in this case
unanimously found Eppolito and Caracappa guilty of racketeering
and murder based on overwhelming evidence," said Brooklyn U.S.
Attorney's Office spokesman Robert Nardoza. "Based on the law
that was given to them by the court, each of the 12 jurors
specifically found that the defendants' heinous crimes were
committed within the statute of limitations."
"We intend to pursue an
appeal," Nardoza said.
"It's a very good day,"
said Hayes. "It does reaffirm our trial strategy, of course."
Louis Eppolito Jr. said
he's thrilled by his father's legal victory, but was quick to
note: "There's going to be a lot of angry families out there."
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