In what might have appeared at the time as an ironic casting move, Eppolito played mafia bad guy "Fat Andy" in the violent 1990 New York gangster epic, which starred Robert de Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta.

After retiring from the city police department in 1990, Eppolito played characters who were bad cops, killers and mafia men. He also wrote "Mafia Cop," an autobiography subtitled "The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob."

"Although his father was a Mafia hitman," says the book's summary, "Lou Eppolito chose to live by a different code; he chose the uniform of the NYPD (New York Police Department) -- and became one of its most decorated cops."

According to the indictment announced by New York prosecutors Thursday, in fact the "Fat Andy" character from the movies was closer to the truth.

Eppolito and fellow former policemen Stephen Caracappa are accused have having spent years on the payroll of the Lucchese family, one of New York's big five mafia clans, and of taking part in eight mob assassinations.

The two were arrested at an Italian restaurant in Las Vegas, where they had retired -- Eppolito to pursue movie acting and Caracappa to run a private investigation business.

Both are charged with murder, obstruction of justice, narcotics trafficking and money laundering.

Eppolito's life was never far from La Cosa Nostra. His father, grandfather and cousin were associates of the Gambino family. According to his book, they steeped him in mafia values of honor and respect.

Eppolito and Caracappa knew each other as police officers in Brooklyn when they were younger, according to media reports.

By the time he retired, Eppolito was a hero, the 11th most decorated policeman in the city's history.

Caracappa, before he retired from the force in 1992, was also playing both sides of the game, according to prosecutors. While on the police force he was one of the founding members of a special unit investigating the mafia.

Their inside positions made them particularly useful for New York's mobsters. According to the indictment, aside from their police paychecks they earned at a time 4,000 dollars a month from the Lucchese family.

Added to that were sums paid for delicate jobs, like 35,000 dollars for grabbing James Hydell, who had taken part in an assassination attempt on Lucchese family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.

Eppolito and Caracappa stuck Hydell in the trunk of a car and delivered him to someone else who killed him. Hydell's body has never been found, though police believe he was tortured into betraying the others who helped him in the attempted hit on Casso.

Eppolito and Caracappa are also believed to have pocketed 65,000 dollars to kill Edward Lino, the hitman who murdered Gambino godfather Paul Castellano in 1985, a move which precipitated the rise of notorious Gambino boss John Gotti Jr.

The two were also involved in keeping mafia figures apprised of police operations against them, according to the indictment.

Both Eppolito and Caracappa narrowly cleared police internal investigations in the 1980s and 1990s for links to organized crime, in part because the witnesses against them were considered unreliable mafia men themselves.

Eppolito's book was in part a chronicle of what he said were false accusations against him by the police. The publisher described it as "the powerful story of the brutal destruction of one good cop by his own bosses."

According to the prosecutor's charges, the two are also guilty in a mafia tragedy of errors. They were asked by Casso to find the address of a Gambino family member Nicholas Guido for a hit.

Caracappa gave him instead the address of another Nicholas Guido, a mentally disabled man who was found shot to death by mob hitmen on Christmas Day in 1986.