Thursday, March 10, 2005 | 11:14 a.m.
Federal agents arrested two retired New York City police detectives in Las Vegas Wednesday in connection with eight mob-related slayings and three attempted killings in the New York area.
Louis Eppolito, 56, who wrote the 1992 book "Mafia Cop," which chronicled his family ties to the mob and his colorful career as a New York detective, and his former partner, Stephen Caracappa, 63, were taken into custody about 6 p.m.
The two men, who have lived in Las Vegas for a decade, were apprehended and quickly whisked away by waiting DEA and FBI agents as they were walking into the upscale Piero's restaurant on Convention Center Drive just off the Strip.
Eppolito's 24-year-old son, Anthony Eppolito, also was arrested at his Las Vegas home on charges of distributing methamphetamine. Agents executed a search warrant there.
All three men are expected to make initial appearances before Acting U.S. Magistrate Jennifer Togliatti today, and they could be ordered to New York.
The elder Eppolito and Caracappa were charged in a federal racketeering indictment returned in Brooklyn on Wednesday with secretly serving as Mafia associates for years while working as police officers. Eppolito worked for the New York Police Department from 1969 to 1990, and Caracappa was employed there from 1969 to 1992.
"These corrupt former detectives betrayed their shields, their colleagues and the citizens they were sworn to protect," Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said in a news release this morning.
"For years they were on retainer with the mob. They were paid handsomely for participating directly and indirectly in the murders and attempted murders of 11 individuals and for disclosing highly confidential law enforcement information to their mob benefactors."
Pasquale D'Amuro, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI in New York, added: "Eppolito and Caracappa were not two good cops who went bad. It seems clear they were two bad guys who somehow became cops."
The indictment charges that, beginning in the 1980s, the two detectives routinely passed sensitive law enforcement information to high-ranking members and associates of New York's Luchese crime family. The information, the indictment charges, compromised several state and federal investigations.
Former Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, now a government witness, allegedly put the two cops on his payroll in 1986, paying them $4,000 a month for confidential law enforcement information, the indictment says.
Casso, the indictment says, hired Eppolito and Caracappa to exact revenge on rival Gambino family members for trying to kill him. The two officers also helped Casso rise to power in the Luchese family, according to the indictment.
One of the underworld figures the two detectives allegedly killed was Edward Lino, a Gambino family captain who was believed to have been associated with the crew that tried to kill Casso. The indictment charges that Casso paid Eppolito and Caracappa $65,000 for the hit. The detectives allegedly pulled Lino over as he was driving in Brooklyn and shot him.
Eppolito and Caracappa also accepted a contract from Casso to kill Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, a ranking Gambino family member who later became a government witness. The attempt to kill Gravano, authorities said, was unsuccessful.
Eppolito and Caracappa also engaged in drug trafficking and money laundering after they relocated to Las Vegas, authorities said.
Eppolito is now a Hollywood screenwriter and actor who has had bit roles in several movies, including "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994), "Mad Dog and Glory"(1993) and the mob classic "Goodfellas" (1990).
In 2003 Eppolito was quoted in a newspaper report as the spokesman for a "citizens" group supporting Sandy Murphy, who at the time was still convicted of killing casino executive Ted Binion. The group, which included Murphy's multimillionaire benefactor, William Fuller, took out a full-page ad in the Sunday Las Vegas Review-Journal and Sun proclaiming Murphy's innocence.
The Nevada Supreme Court later overturned the murder convictions of both Murphy and her co-defendant, Rick Tabish, and the former lovers were acquitted in November of the murder charges, but convicted of stealing Binion's silver. Their sentencing is Friday.
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