(CBS) In what could be the city's worst case of
police corruption ever, one-time Mafia boss Anthony (Gas
Pipe) Casso describes two murders he says he paid New
York detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa to
set up or commit, crimes for which the two former
officers have recently been indicted.
Casso's interview with
Correspondent Ed Bradley, the only one
the former Lucchese family under-boss has ever given, will be
broadcast on
60 Minutes, Sunday, April 10, at 7 p.m.
ET/PT.
Casso's outrageous allegations -- vehemently denied
by Bruce Cutler, Eppolito's lawyer, and Caracappa's counsel, Ed
Hayes -- came out in a prison interview with Bradley in 1998, but
could not be substantiated.
60 Minutes could not
broadcast those allegations until now, with the highly decorated
Eppolito and Caracappa under
indictment.
Casso says he paid the two detectives to set up the 1986 murder of
Jimmy Hydell that he committed himself because he thought Hydell
tried to kill him.
"Louie [Eppolito] and Steve [Caracappa] ... make believe they're
going to arrest [Hydell]. They put him in the car...an unmarked car.
I gave them a car. The kid thought they were taking him to the
station house, but they took him to a garage," he tells Bradley.
"They laid him on the floor...tied his feet, his hands...put him in
the trunk," says Casso.
The detectives then handed Hydell over to him, says Casso. "The
guy's kicking in the trunk...making noise. I took him
to...somebody's house that I could use [and] sat him down. I wanted
to know why I was shot...and who, you know, gave the orders to shoot
me. After that, I killed the kid myself."
Casso says he didn't shoot Hydell in the head because "that was
somebody's house. You make a mess," he tells Bradley. "I shot him a
couple times. I didn't torture the kid. I didn't do anything like
that."
Pressed by Bradley, Casso admits he shot Hydell many times. "Maybe I
shot him 10 times, 12 times. It coulda been 15."
Eppolito and Caracappa were well paid for the job, according to
Casso. "I gave Louis and Steve, I think, $45,000 for delivering him
to me," says Casso.
That was over and above their usual $4,000 per month salary for
tipping him off on police investigations and providing other secret
information, say New York prosecutors. And Casso says the two
detectives would have killed Hydell if he didn't.
"Well, they wanted to kill for me," Casso says. "I didn't even have
to do it."
The two detectives did kill for him, says the former mob boss, now
serving a life sentence for confessing to 36 murders. Hydell's was
one of eight murders that Casso says Eppolito and Caracappa either
aided or actually committed for him.
(CBS) They shot to death a crime family associate named
Eddie Lino in 1990, says Casso, this time for even more money. "I
gave them $75,000. They killed [Lino], like, cowboy style," recalls
Casso. "They pulled alongside of him. They shot him. They made him
crash into the fence alongside the Belt Parkway....Then Steve got
out of the car, ran across the street and finished shooting him,
fnished killing him in the car."
New York prosecutors believe Casso and cite corroborating evidence
in their indictment of the detectives for eight murders in
connection with Casso. But they do admit Casso has lied as a federal
witness before and lawyers for the detectives say that's what he's
doing now.
"I can't think of a riskier thing to do. It's the Belt Parkway,"
says Hayes. "So it seems like almost a movie version of a
crime....You can see Casso making it up."
The crime did happen that way, allows Hayes, but "[Caracappa] says
he didn't [kill Nino]."
Attorney Bruce Cutler says the allegations defy common sense. "Why
would somebody who went up the ladder in the police department,
received awards for bravery...why would you besmirch and tarnish
everything you stand for...to do the bidding of a reprobate like
Casso?" asks Cutler.
All the allegations are lies, he says. "I can't give you the motive
[for Casso lying]," says Cutler. "I never could understand
it...witnesses like Casso, who want to get out from under, blame
others."
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes can't understand it either.
He says he's never seen anything like this. "No. I've seen organized
corruption cases, but the allegation of two cops being hit men - in
addition to giving up people for a hit - just absolutely shocking,"
says Hynes.