Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa spent most of their adult lives working as decorated detectives from the New York Police Department. Deep down inside the boys in blue traded their badge of honor, for the fast cash of being mafia hitmen. They went on to retire and move from New York City to Las Vegas. The only issue with both detectives was that they were on the payroll of the Lucchese Crime family, and mafia associates would soon rate them out. They were added to the payroll by the Underboss at the time Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso then Underboss of the family. They were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison and fined a large amount of money.
1 Eppolito’s father, Gambino Crime Family soldier
Lou Eppolito’s grandfather, father and uncle were all
members of the Gambino Crime family.
They were all involved in common mafia rackets, loan sharking, numbers
running, extortion and money laundering.
His father’s name was Ralph Eppolito.
Ralph was an old-time member of the Gambino Crime family, he had been
inducted into the family by Carlo Gambino.
As a young teenager Eppolito’s dad would bring him to his social club
and teach Lou about the mafia ways. Lou’s
grandfather came to the United States around the turn of the 20th
century. Later, he ran rackets with
Lucky Luciano, and Carlo Gambino. Lou
Eppolito was born into a family of mobsters. At 12 years-old, Lou started to
work in his father’s bar, and he soon started to give envelopes of money to
police sitting in their squad cars nearby.
2 Lou Eppolito gets Involved with the NYPD
At his father’s funeral, mobsters were giving Lou Eppolito
envelopes of and cards. The envelopes and the cards contained information to
get jobs at various sectors in New York City controlled by the mafia. Lou
and his wife had just had a baby and he was working a dead-end job. He called a mobster and was soon set up with
a job at the Manhattan Central Post office.
The job did not last long so Lou Eppolito decided to help a friend get
ready for the physical portion of the NYPD Police exam. Lou decided to take the exam and he
passed. He was filling out a
pre-employment questionnaire when it asked “if you or anyone in your family has
been arrested or convicted of a felony please outline here” Lou Filled out the
sheet honestly. The recruiting officer
asked about Lou’s family and since he was honest, he was given the green
light. In the 1960s crime in New York
City was increasing and a lot of young men were fighting in Vietnam. In, 1969 he was hired and 6 months later
assigned to Brooklyn’s 63rd street precinct. His beat took him to the streets where his
family ran rackets for over 60 years.
3 Stephen Caracappa dies in Prison
Stephen Caracappa was serving his time in a medical
detention facility in North Carolina.
Caracappa was 75 years old at the time of his death. He passed away on April 8, 2017. By 2016 Caracappa had exhausted all his
appeals, and would spend the rest of his life in prison, he attempted to
petition a federal judge for early release because he had been suffering from
cancer. The federal judge declined to do
anything stating that it was out of his hands. Carracappa hand wrote his letter.
4 Mafia Cops Arrested and Convicted
On March 9, 2005, they were arrested in Las Vegas. On March 13, 2006, the trial began. They faced charges for 10 murders,
obstruction of justice, drug distribution, and money laundering. The indictments against Caracappa and
Eppolito state that they were involved with the mafia from May 16, 1979-March
9, 2005. Burton Kaplan testified against
both mafia cops. Kaplan stated that the
partnership between the mafia cops and the Lucchese family was from
1986-1993. Kaplan testified that he
delivered information between the mafia cops and Anthony Casso for much of
those years. On April 6, 2006 both
Eppolito and Caracappa were convicted by a Jury. The judge was not convinced and threw out the
conviction. The court of appeals
reversed the decision. They were both
sentenced to life in prison. Eppolito
was sentenced to life plus 100 years, and Caracappa was given life plus 80
years. They were each fined 4 million
dollars. Both cops denied the charges,
and conviction, Eppolito apologized to the families of the victims. Both mafia cops at the time of writing this
article had exhausted their appeals.
5 Eppolito writes a book
Eppolito wrote a book about his life in the mafia while he
was a kid, and being an NYPD cop. The
book was published in 1992. The book had
pictures, and in one of them there was Eppolito and Caracappa with a caption
that read “The Two godfathers of the NYPD”.
Eppolito went on a book tour and appeared on Sally Jesse Raphael’s TV
show. Jimmy Hydell’s mother was watching
the show, she bought the book, and she could ID the two cops that interviewed
her son, on the day that Jimmy Hydell went missing. Hydell’s mother informed the NYPD what she
saw that day. For the first-time NYPD detectives,
could place a connection between Eppolito, Caracappa and Jimmy Hydell. Had Eppolito not written the book it is
possible that they would have gotten away with their crimes.
6 Robbery Division
Caracappa was the good cop, and Eppolito was the bad cop so
to speak. They both had access to
sensitive information, the kind of information that mobsters would pay a lot of
money for. The NYPD job provided a lot
of cover, they eventually launched a criminal enterprise. In the early 80s they were split up, by the
mid-80s Caracappa was in an organized squad of the NYPD. Lou Eppolito’s
fingerprints were found on Police reports found hidden in the home of a heroin
dealer Rosario Gambino. Eppolito decided
to fight for his job, he stood trial in an NYPD internal investigation. The judge determined that there was not
enough evidence to convict, Eppolito returned to the job. In the mid-80s Caracappa’s position allowed
him to look at information that the FBI and NYPD family had on the Lucchese and
Genovese family. For three years, these
two families knew about every bug and every informant that was cooperating
against the families.
7 Anthony Casso is Arrested.
In Early May of 1990 Lou Eppolito informed Casso through
Burton Kaplan that he was going to be arrested.
Eppolito now retired, called Kaplan from Las Vegas, he said that he
received the information from Caracappa who was still an NYPD detective. On May 7, 1990 Anthony Casso became a
fugitive. The government had wiretapped
Casso’s associates. Casso would call
from cell phones and with this information the government tracked him
down. Casso was arrested in New Jersey while he was hiding out.
To save his life he flipped on Kaplan, Eppolito, and
Caracappa. Casso became an unreliable
witness because his story kept changing, but the information was useful. Casso revealed that throughout the years that
the mafia cops worked for him, he paid them over $350,000.
Burton Kaplan and Eppolito’s cousin
Eppolito’s cousin Frank Santoro met a Jewish Mobster, Bert Kaplan while doing a stint in prison.
Santoro told Kaplan that he had a cousin on the NYPD and if he ever
needed any favors to let him know. At
the time, Frank Santoro was associated with the Gambino family. Santoro even offered to do murders for
Kaplan. Initially Kaplan had concerns
about working with cops, but Santoro reassured him that he worked with the cops
before and they could be trusted. Kaplan
had a racket selling stolen treasury bonds, and he suspected that he was being
ripped off by a jeweler named Israel Greenwald, Kaplan found out that he was
about to be ratted out to the feds.
Kaplan offered 30000 dollars for the hit. On February 10, 1986, the
detectives staked out Greenwald’s home.
Greenwald left and he was subsequently pulled over by them. They asked the jeweler to come to the police
station to participate in a lineup because he was a suspect in a hit and run,
and he agreed. Instead of going to the
station, they drove him to an auto repair shop in Brooklyn where Santoro was
waiting. Santoro shot Greenwald
dead. Santoro forced the garage owner to
bury the body inside the warehouse. Santoro
made $5,000, Eppolito and Caracappa split up $25,000. Santoro was killed in 1987 thereafter Kaplan
met with Eppolito and or Caracappa late at night in a private place, busy
highway, and cemeteries near Staten Island.
Mafia Cops, Lucchese Family and Jimmy Hydell
Casso was shot and wanted revenge. Kaplan informed Casso that he had a friend
whose cousin works in the 63rd Precinct and that he could probably
help with identifying the attackers.
Kaplan informed Casso of the help he received from them regarding the
Greenwald assassination. The attempted
hit on Casso occurred in Brooklyn 63rd precinct where Eppolito
worked at the time. Casso sent word
through Kaplan who acted as the middleman to get information from the
cops. A few days later Kaplan gave Casso
information about suspects, the first one was Jimmy Hydell, a Gambino Crime
Family associate. The mafia cops gave
the information to Santoro who gave it to Kaplan, Santoro told him it was a
gift from the mafia cops, and these are some of the things they would do. Kaplan proposed that the cops could deliver
Hydell to Casso. On October 18, 1986
Eppolito and Caracappa staked out Hydell’s house. The cops interviewed Jimmy’s brother, Frank
Hydell and they found out where Jimmy was.
During the interview the mom got a good look of the two cops. They met up with Jimmy later, who assumed he
was being arrested. They hog tied jimmy
and threw him in the truck, the keys were given to Frank Santoro. Eppolito followed Santoro where they observed
Santoro give the keys to Casso and Kaplan.
At the bodyshop it was the first time that all 5 men had seen each
other. Casso took the keys from Kaplan
and told everyone else to leave. Jimmy
Hydell was tortured in a Brooklyn basement, his body was never found. Eppolito and Caracappa each received $30,000,
Santoro received $5,000.
Nicky Guido
Jimmy Hydell revealed that Nicky Guido, and Eddie Lino where
the others that tried to kill Casso.
Casso asked the detectives for information but they only had a
name. They came up with a name and
address but wanted more money from Casso to investigate further, he refused
because he had given a $5,000 bonus for Delivering Hydell, Santoro kept this
money and never told Eppolito or Caracappa. All this information was being
funneled through Kaplan. December 25,
1986 Nicky Guido is killed in front of his home in Brooklyn, but it was the
wrong Nicky Guido. The Guido that they
were looking for lived in upstate New York.
Casso wanted to make sure that this never happens again and put the
mafia cops on the payroll at 4000 dollars a month. Burt Kaplan was very upset about the wrong
Nicky Guido’s murder. Kaplan flipped and
over the course of the next few months he linked Eppolito, and Caracappa to
numerous murders. Nicky Guido’s mother
would go on to receive a settlement from the City of New York for 5 million
dollars.
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