Detective instrumental in bringing down cops

BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
STAFF WRITER

March 10, 2005, 7:38 PM EST

When Det. Tommy Dades retired from the NYPD last year and joined the Brooklyn District Attorney's office as an investigator he took with him his coffee mug, a picture of his two kids and a nagging suspicion that two detectives had gotten away with murder.

Thursday, with those cops, retired detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, stunningly accused of mob murders while on the job, no one had a greater sense of satisfaction than Dades, who worked closely with prosecutors to build a case that had remained stagnant for a number of years.

"It was one of the most rewarding case that I've done," said Dades, now 43 and running a Police Athletic League boxing program on Staten Island. "It's basically a slam dunk case. Unless they know where Osama bin Laden is, they're not striking a deal."

Dades was a detective in the 68th Precinct, in Bay Ridge, when he first heard the names Eppolito and Caracappa, detectives accused by Luchese mobster Anthony "Gas Pipe" Casso of kidnapping another mobster and delivering him to Casso for execution.

Dades wasn't involved in the case at the time, but in September 2003, Dades, then assigned to the Intelligence Division, came across a vital piece of information.

Dades would not describe the information, but he said it helped jump-start what had been a stalled investigation.

Dades hooked up with investigators from the Brooklyn district attorney's office, put together a "war room" filled with evidence files and photos and went back in time, trying to confirm everything Casso had said about Eppolito and Caracappa.

"The allegations were definitely true, but it was going to be a hard case to prove," Dades remembers. "Casso lied about a lot of things so he was not a credible witness. But from the things he told us we found a paper trail to corroborate a lot of what he said."

Key to the case, police sources said, was poring over NYPD records detailing computer searches done by both detectives, particularly Caracappa, who had been assigned to the Organized Crime Control Bureau.

Such checks on mobsters are part of the job, but some of the searches were followed shortly thereafter by mob murders, sources said.

The computer checks often involved basic information, such as finding a home address, as mobsters often know very little about the men with whom they live a life of crime, Dades said.

"A lot of time you speak to wiseguys, they don't even know a guy's last name," Dades said. "'What about Joe Blow? you ask.' They say, 'Well I know Joe, but I don't know anything about Blow."'

Little by little, Dades, the district attorney's investigators, including Joseph Ponzi, Mark Feldman and agents for the Drug Enforcement Administration, pieced together what amounts to perhaps the worst allegation of corruption in the NYPD's fabled history.

"They make Michael Dowd look like an altar boy," Dades said, referring to drug-dealing cop released from prison last year after serving 10 years. "It destroys all the hard work and the integrity of detectives I worked with."

Dades retired from the NYPD last May, took two months off, then jumped back into the probe, this time as investigator for the district attorney's office. He stayed four months, helped to advance the investigation, before leaving that post to teach kids how to box.

His one regret?

"I wish I was there for the arrest," he said. "Those guys are an embarrassment to the department.