Who are the ex-cops?

BY SEAN GARDINER, LINDSAY FABER AND ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
STAFF WRITERS

March 10, 2005, 9:57 PM EST

In many respects, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa couldn't be more different.

Eppolito is gregarious and large, a former bodybuilder and one-time snake collector, who still dreams of being a movie star and favors flashy clothes and excessive jewelry. Caracappa is quiet, reserved and "so skinny if you blew on him hard you'd knock him to the ground," according to one former colleague of the men.

"One guy was this big -- -- guy, a former bodybuilder with this bad combover, and the other guy looked like an undertaker," said the colleague who knew the men when Eppolito was stationed in Brooklyn's 63rd Precinct and Caracappa worked Major Crimes in the 1980s.

But federal law enforcers yesterday charged that both men were crooked cops on the take to a mob boss who used them over the years to kill eight rivals.

The former Brooklyn detectives were arraigned yesterday on racketeering conspiracy charges, a decade after mobster Anthony "Gas Pipe" Casso first told law enforcement authorities that Eppolito and Caracappa, who were both retired by then, had long been in the mob's pocket. But rumors had surfaced years before that the cops, who were the resident "wise guys experts," were a little close to those they were supposed to be pursuing, according to the former colleague.

"A lot of guys thought they were wise guys themselves," the colleague said.

Eppolito, 56, who grew up in Canarsie, joined the NYPD in 1969 and a decade later met Caracappa, a Bensonhurst native, when they were both working at the Brooklyn Robbery Squad, officials said. By his own account and those of his colleagues, Eppolito was an active police officer. In his book, "Mafia Cop," Eppolito claims he was the 11th most decorated officer in NYPD history. He had a collection of snakes back then, a colleague said, and he often was razzed about his snake tie pin and the ring he wore affixed with a serpent's head.

While Caracappa steadily worked his way up to the prestigious rank of first-grade detective, Eppolito's career was sidetracked in 1984. That year he was suspended after being charged administratively with copying reports and photos from the NYPD's Intelligence Division and giving them to Rosario Gambino, the nephew of Carlo Gambino, a reputed leader of the Gambino crime family. The charges were later dropped but his reputation on the force never fully recovered.

Federal authorities charged yesterday that starting around 1985 through 1993, Eppolito and Caracappa were paid about $4,000 per month from Casso to receive "highly sensitive" NYPD and FBI information, including the names of informants and witnesses and reports on on-going wiretaps and surveillances. In one case, the pair allegedly brought a man suspected of participating in an attempted assassination of Casso to Casso himself, who then had the man killed. And they're accused of killing another of Casso's would-be assassins themselves.

When Eppolito turned in his badge in 1989, one of the first things he did was start hanging around gangsters, movie gangsters. Eppolito was given a small part in Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas."

In 1992, Eppolito wrote "Mafia Cop," in which he revealed that his father, uncle and cousin were all members of the mob. In fact, his uncle and cousin were murdered in a gangland hit in 1979.

Caracappa retired from the NYPD in 1993, and worked a short time as head of security for the Union Square Business Improvement District.

Caracappa's former superintendent at 12 E. 22nd St., where Caracappa lived in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said he remembers Caracappa breaking up a robbery on the block once. He said, "Steve is an A-1 guy, he's a quality person" and he couldn't believe that Caracappa would be involved with criminals. "It could be very wrong," he said of the indictment.

Eppolito lived in Holbrook from 1974 through 1994. Some neighbors on the street where he lived, contacted by Newsday yesterday, didn't remember him. In December 1994, he moved to Las Vegas and bought a two-story, three-bedroom home with a pool for $362,000. A year later Caracappa bought a one-story, two-bedroom home across the street from his partner for $235,000, according to real estate records.

Joseph Ponzi, chief investigator in the Brooklyn district attorney's office, said Eppolito and Caracappa were "living the semi-retired life" in Las Vegas.

Caracappa took work with a local private investigations firm.

Eppolito obtained small parts in 11 movies, including "State of Grace" with Sean Penn and was trying to raise money to have a movie he wrote produced.

Retired detective Tommy Dades, who jump-started the case against Eppolito and Caracappa in September 2003, said Eppolito took the gangster dress to an extreme with rings on every finger, black shirts with white ties, and excessive amounts of gold chains.

"Eppolito dressed the part almost like a Halloween costume," Dades said.

Dades found Eppolito and Caracappa an odd couple.

"Caracappa was almost like a tag along to Eppolito," Dades said. "Eppolito was loud and boisterous and gaudy. Total opposite personalities. You would never picture the two of them together."

Eppolito's former attorney Bruce Cutler, who was the longtime lawyer for John Gotti, did not return calls for comment. Caracappa's attorney Ed Hayes said that Caracappa "had no associations with members of organized crime or associates of organized crime and denies these allegations."

Hayes said he found the charges incredulous, noting that "the last time a member of the New York Police Department was accused of such a crime was almost 100 years ago in the murder of Herman Rosenthal by Lt. Charles Becker in 1912. He was convicted and he went to the electric chair."

As far as motive goes, Dades said the pair didn't have any gambling debts or financial problems, "it was just that they liked the money and enjoyed playing both sides of the fence. I don't think they knew what side they wanted to be on."

Staff writer Denise Bonilla and freelance writer Brian Boyd contributed to this story.