Theatrics Open N.Y. Mafia Trial

At the moment court adjourned for the day, legendary defense lawyer Bruce Cutler was not just yelling but bellowing, stabbing the air with his finger, his face crimson. The witness, a sweet-faced former Luchese boss turned government informant, had risen from his seat and was yelling himself.

“I can holler louder than you!” said Alfonse “Little Al” D’Arco, glowering at Cutler. “You loudmouth!”

Moments later, Cutler -- his voice now quiet -- delivered an apology to U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein.

Weinstein, 85, gave a glower of his own. “Why should I be upset?” he asked. It was a rhetorical question. “You not only raised your voice, you screamed repeatedly, and stomped throughout the court.”

The first day of testimony in the trial of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa -- former New York police detectives accused of moonlighting as mafia foot soldiers -- yielded eight hours of courtroom theater.

Among the images evoked were these: a yarmulke nearly rotted away on the skull of a slain gem merchant; a dead canary stuffed inside the mouth of a dead man; a body in a pristine white jacket slumped outside his mother’s house in Brooklyn as she washed dishes inside on Christmas Day.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Mitra Hormozi on Monday described two policemen who “went into business together,” accepting $4,000 a week from a mafia underboss, Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, in exchange for a steady stream of information. Hormozi said the pair were involved in eight killings and described one -- of a 34-year-old Orthodox Jewish diamond merchant -- in painstaking detail.

“These two men were not traditional mobsters; they were better. They could get away with murder because they were New York City policemen,” she said.

The two pulled over Israel Greenwald’s car and flashed their badges before leading him to a garage where his body would be found 19 years later, “a watch where his wrist might’ve been,” and “a remnant of a yarmulke on his skull,” she said.

“They were not murderers who happened to be cops,” she said. “They were able to be murderers because they were cops.”

That narrative met a bravura response from Cutler, who is defending Eppolito. Cutler -- best known for defending the late John Gotti -- stalked around the courtroom, sometimes trembling with emotion and once slamming his fist into a wooden table. His client, whose bodybuilder’s physique has run to fat, watched with the impassive expression of a man seated on his front stoop, observing the street in front of him.

Cutler said organized crime “once had a code, certain rules, certain regulations,” but had deteriorated into a collection of turncoats who, facing prosecution, “wet their pants and called ‘Mommy’ -- the government.” Eppolito was born into a crime family but turned away from the mafia early in life and never looked back, Cutler said.

Eppolito’s error, Cutler said, was moving to Nevada in 1995 “to be near Los Angeles, which is the world of make-believe.” An aspiring actor and screenwriter, he co-wrote a book called “Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was in the Mob,” and took a bit part in the 1990 movie “Goodfellas.”

When the pair were caught with an ounce of methamphetamine, Cutler said, it was only “so these Hollywood punks could have a party.”

“This is not New York, where Louie grew up,” he said. “This is the land of illusion, the movie world. The movie world has a lot of B.S. in it.”

A second celebrity lawyer, Ed Hayes, represents Caracappa, a lean, alert-looking man who rose from patrolman to help create the department’s Organized Crime Homicide Unit. As Hayes began his opening argument, he stood behind Caracappa stroking his client’s head.

“Steve Caracappa has spent his whole life risking his life for other people,” Hayes said. “What happened here is that gangsters learned the best thing that they could do ... is turn on the people that were investigating them.”

Observers, many scribbling in notebooks, packed the courtroom. In the second row sat Eppolito’s wife, Fran, and daughter, Andrea, who wore her raven-black hair in a femme fatale updo. Behind them sat the columnist Jimmy Breslin, who is writing a book about the case, and Lou Eppolito Jr. -- the defendant’s estranged son from his first marriage, who also is writing a book. In the fourth row sat Jane McCormick, 64, who attended court wearing a red rhinestone-spangled cowboy hat, a red-and-black checkerboard tunic, and red ballet flats.

McCormick said she paid $45,000 to Eppolito to help her write a screenplay based on her life as a Vegas showgirl and a casino escort to members of the 1950s and ‘60s era entertainers nicknamed the Rat Pack. The screenplay, she said, was never delivered. She plans to testify against Eppolito in a separate tax-evasion case and to write a book about their dealings.

“I haven’t trusted a man in I don’t know how long, but I trusted him,” she said. “I just came down here to look him in the face.”

The day ended with a dramatic exchange between Cutler and D’Arco, a slightly built man of 73 who testified that Casso received a steady stream of information from unidentified detectives. Under questioning from the prosecutor, D’Arco amiably confessed to committing eight murders, hijacking trucks, armed robbery, arson, tax evasion, heroin dealing, racketeering, burglary, assault and “every type of crime except pimping and pornography, stuff like that,” he said. “When I was raised by organized crime figures, that was a no-no. That was bad stuff.”

D’Arco’s amiability dropped away under intense, repetitive cross-examination about the deal he made with prosecutors and he finally snapped at Cutler: “Keep that voice down! I’m not answering you. You’re loud-mouthing in here.”

When Cutler pressed him on his reasons for becoming involved in organized crime, his temper flared again.

“I never picked it. I was a man when I was born. I led my life the way I led it. I was used by organized crime members when I was 14 years old,” he said. When Cutler asked why the mafia life appealed to him, D’Arco answered, “It didn’t appeal to me. It was just part of my life.”