thumb|250px|Stephen Caracappa (left) and Louis Eppolito (right)

Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito were former New York City Police Department (NYPD) detectives who committed various illegal activities on behalf of the Five Families of the American Mafia, principally the Lucchese and Gambino crime families. The two subsequently became known as the "Mafia Cops".

In 2005, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York indicted Caracappa and Eppolito on charges of racketeering conspiracy for a pattern of murders, kidnappings, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, money laundering and narcotics dealing with mobsters and mob associates, spanning from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s. Both were convicted in 2006 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009. He subsequently worked as a private investigator and retired in the mid-1990s, moving to Las Vegas, Nevada, along with Eppolito. Caracappa was working inside the Las Vegas Women's Correctional Facility as a corrections officer at the time of his arrest. While on trial in 2006, both he and Eppolito claimed that they were discriminated against during the proceedings.

Eppolito

Louis Eppolito (July 22, 1948 – November 3, 2019) was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Theresa Eppolito, a registered nurse, and Ralph Eppolito, an associate of the Gambino crime family.

On June 30, 2006, the presiding federal judge, Jack B. Weinstein, threw out a racketeering murder conviction against Caracappa and Eppolito on a technicality – the five-year statute of limitations had expired on the key charge of racketeering conspiracy. On September 17, 2008, their racketeering convictions were ordered reinstated by a federal appeals court. New York City paid $18.4 million to settle seven lawsuits brought by families of the victims of Caracappa and Eppolito.

Incarceration and death

Caracappa was incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman in Florida. He was transferred to a federal prison in North Carolina before dying of cancer on April 8, 2017.

Eppolito was incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Tucson, a high-security federal prison. He died on November 3, 2019, in federal custody at a Tucson hospital.

References

Further reading

  • New York Daily News article relating to the arrests, 2005.
  • Transcript of the indictment against both men (, courtesy of ISPN.org, 2005).
  • Report of conviction, BBC, 2006.
  • "Mafia Cops Facing Life in Prison", AP, June 5, 2006.
  • "Alleged Mafia Cop Speaks Out", 60 Minutes, 2006.