Law enforcers puzzle over lives, careers of 'Mafia Cops'

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
Associated Press Writer

March 12, 2005, 10:39 AM EST

NEW YORK -- One was fat, flashy and liked by fellow cops, a rough-and-tumble detective with a storied career and relatives in the Mob.

The other was skinnier, quieter and less well-regarded, despite his years spent in the nerve center of Mafia murder investigations.

Together, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were accused this week of one of the most stunning violations in the history of New York law enforcement: Prosecutors charge that they moonlighted for more than a decade as Mafia hit men who kidnapped, killed and engineered the slayings of at least eight rival gangsters for a vicious Luchese family underboss.

As the two men sat without bail Saturday in a Las Vegas jail, law-enforcement veterans puzzled over the lives and careers of men who won medals, fame and respect as they carried out what prosecutors called a sickening betrayal of public trust.

Were they mobsters who became cops, many wondered, or good cops sucked into the underworld of organized crime?

Eppolito, 56, is the greater enigma. The son, grandson and nephew of Gambino family members, he entered the police department in 1969 and quickly developed a reputation as a cops' cop, a tough guy with a knack for knocking heads and solving difficult crimes.

"He was a hard charger and he made lots of arrests," said one retired detective, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. "He was a rough-and-tumble, roll-on-the-ground kind of street cop."

Eppolito described himself as the department's 11th most-decorated officer in his 1992 book "Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob."

At a bail hearing Friday in Las Vegas, where the former partners both retired in the early '90s, Eppolito's lawyer offered a list of awards, medal and citations won by the former detective first-grade, one of the police department's most coveted ranks.

Some investigators believe Eppolito built his impressive record by using Mafia connections to glean inside information on crimes.

"He was getting heads-up information that would make him look good," said Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes. "I've been involved in a lot of police corruption investigations over the years and I've never heard anything like this. It reaches a level of utter disbelief."

But others familiar with the case say Eppolito's Mob ties cannot explain his long history of tough investigations and arrests in some of Brooklyn's grittiest neighborhoods.

"He was really perceived as a great street cop," said another investigator familiar with the case. "I'm talking gun collars and that kind of stuff that good street cops do ... I've seen him put together cases that were fairly complex and highly circumstantial."

Either way, prosecutors charge, Eppolito and Caracappa took thousands of dollars a month from Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso for leaking police information that Casso used to find and eliminate his enemies.

Caracappa, 63, cut a lower profile than Eppolito, a flashy dresser who played a series of bit parts as cops or crooks in movies including "Goodfellas."

But the skinny detective known as "The Stick" had access to reams of confidential information as a founding member of the Organized Crime Homicide Unit in the department's Major Case Squad.

"He knew what the FBI was doing, he knew what the DEA was doing," the second investigator said. "Everything was funneled through there."

Casso paid $65,000 in 1990 for the two detectives to pull over Gambino captain Eddie Lino in their unmarked car with flashing lights and shoot him to death for a suspected attempt on Casso's life, prosecutors charge. They grabbed another mob associate from a meeting in a Brooklyn park, stuffed him in their trunk and delivered him to Casso for torture, interrogation and execution, according to court documents and interviews with investigators.

Caracappa and Eppolito are expected to return to Brooklyn later this month to face charges of murder, racketeering, attempted murder and murder conspiracy. They could face life in prison if convicted.