Detectives Were Hit Men, Prosecutors Say

Two police detectives led double lives as Mafia hit men, kidnapping and killing rival gangsters and giving confidential information to the mob for more than a decade, federal prosecutors charged Thursday.

Louis Eppolito, who wrote an autobiography titled “Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob,” and his former partner, Stephen Caracappa, were arrested at a restaurant off the Las Vegas Strip, law enforcement officials said. The pair have been living across the street from each other in Las Vegas, since retiring in the early 1990s.

They were accused of accessing police files to give mob associates the names of confidential informants who were then slain for their cooperation with police, prosecutors said.

“These corrupt former detectives betrayed their shields, their colleagues, and the citizens they were sworn to protect,” said U.S. Atty. Roslynn Mauskopf.

Each is charged with eight murders, two attempted murders, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, drug distribution and money laundering.

The pair appeared Thursday in federal court in Las Vegas but did not enter pleas. The hearing was postponed until today.

Outside court, Caracappa’s lawyer David Chesnoff accused the government of using “organized crime figures who are trying to save their lives” to build their case. “The government is relying on the words of rats,” he said.

According to court documents, Eppolito, 56, and Caracappa, 63, targeted several mobsters in retaliation for the attempted assassination of Luchese family underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso.

In 1987, the detectives kidnapped a mob figure, stuffed him in a car trunk and delivered him to Casso, who tortured and killed him, prosecutors said.

Eppolito and Caracappa also allegedly took $65,000 from Casso in 1992 to kill Eddie Lino, a Gambino family captain suspected of involvement in the attempt on Casso’s life. The detectives followed Lino from a Brooklyn social club, pulled him over and shot him to death, prosecutors charged.