Mafia Cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa

Former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were sentenced Friday in Brooklyn federal court after telling the judge they are innocent.But the son of one of their victims told the former cops:

"May you have a long life in prison."

Prosecutors said Eppolito and Caracappa moonlighted as hitmen for the Luchese crime family while on the force during the 1980s."Mafia Cops" Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa, convicted in April 2006 of committing eight murders while on the payroll of a mob underboss, received life sentences Friday in Brooklyn federal court.Eppolito, the son of a mobster, was sentenced to life plus 100 years. Partner Caracappa received life plus 80 years. Each was fined more than $4 million.
Although the pair remained jailed in the years since they were convicted of betraying their badges, their case was tied up in appeals that delayed their sentencing.Caracappa, 67, and Eppolito, 60, committed the killings between 1986-90. The elder detective stood to declare he had nothing to do with the slayings.
"I am innocent of these charges," Caracappa insisted. Eppolito, speaking before his sentencing, made the same claim."I'm a big boy, I'm not a child," he said. "The federal government can my life. But they can't take my soul, they can't take my
dignity. I never hurt anybody. ... I never did any of this."Federal Judge Jack Weinstein - who overturned their convictions on a technicality, but was reversed by an appeals court - handed down the lengthy terms.Weinstein, after their convictions, said the pair had committed "the most heinous series of crimes ever tried in this courthouse."He threw out their convictions in June 2006, citing the statute of limitations in the racketeering case. Prosecutors appealed, and the convictions were restored last September.The crooked pair earned as much as $65,000 for one of their hits on behalf of brutal mob boss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso. The jailed Mafiosi, suspected of 36 murders, paid the rogue cops a $4,000-a-month retainer while they worked for him. The defendants committed the killings while simultaneously on the payrolls of the NYPD and the Luchese crime family.Caracappa, who retired in 1992 after 23 years with the NYPD, helped establish the department's clearing house for Mafia murder
probes.Eppolito grew up in a mob family: His father, grandfather and an uncle were members of the Gambino family. The dichotomy between his career and his upbringing was covered in his autobiography, "Mafia Cop: The Story of An Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob."Eppolito, who retired in 1990, had a bit part in the classic mob movie "Goodfellas" - and later fancied himself a Hollywood script writer.

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John A. "Junior" Gotti indictment brought against Gotti in Tampa features the same racketeering conspiracy charge

Florida judge ordered the latest prosecution of John A. "Junior" Gotti returned to Manhattan, finding that the government left the "unmistakeable and disquieting impression" it had shopped for a trial location where it might finally win.U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday said Tuesday that an indictment brought against Gotti in Tampa features the same racketeering conspiracy charge that had failed to result in a conviction after three trials in Manhattan.He said Gotti's notoriety, his apparently acknowledged role in organized crime before he announced he had left the life behind and the frustration prosecutors feel after repeated losses "contribute to the temptation to extend to Florida the 'quest' to convict Gotti."Merryday added that the U.S. attorney in Florida "oddly" chose to charge a crime of RICO conspiracy that allegedly occurred largely outside that state."In this context, the charging decision of the United States, apparently unaccountable on neutral principles, creates the unmistakeable and disquieting impression of 'forum shopping,'" the judge said.Gotti was charged last year with crimes involving three gangland slayings. He has denied wrongdoing.A spokesman for federal prosecutors in Florida did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment. Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for prosecutors in New York, said her office had no comment.Charles Carnesi, Gotti's New York lawyer, said the tone of the ruling made it seem the judge believed the decision to prosecute in Florida "was just a strategic move to try to deprive him of his ability to put forth his defense."He said he would probably seek bail in Florida so Gotti could return to New York out of custody."I'm looking forward to having him home for Christmas," Carnesi said.Three juries in Manhattan have deadlocked on charges against Gotti. His lawyers asserted in his defense that he had quit the Gambino family by July 1999, protecting him from charges because the statute of limitations — five years for racketeering charges — would have expired.
Prosecutors have said Gotti assumed control of the powerful Gambino family after his father's 1992 conviction on racketeering and murder charges. His father died in prison in 2002.

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Vollaro agreed to provide evidence against the Corozzos and others by wearing a wire

Joseph Vollaro, CEO of a Staten Island-based Andrew's Trucking Corp., came under scrutiny, said a law-enforcement source. Vollaro, described as a close associate of the Corozzo brothers and their Howard Beach, Queens, crew, was a "big earner" and may have been on track for induction into the crime family, the source said.
After being caught with 1 kilo of cocaine, Vollaro agreed to provide evidence against the Corozzos and others by wearing a wire. "He made devastating recordings against the Corozzo crew . . . discussions about how they conducted their entire business, and how the money came in and how it was kicked up to their bosses," the source said. "They captured . . . payoffs from construction people, payoffs from jobs, kickbacks." In addition, wiretaps, surveillance video and photos also provided evidence the Gambinos demanded a tribute of $1 per cubic yard of landfill used at the site of the later-aborted NASCAR race track on Staten Island, and were skimming money from pension contributions at a Teamsters local. Other projects allegedly infiltrated by the Gambinos were a West Side water tunnel, a Bronx water-filtration system, and the Liberty View Harbor site in Jersey City. Added to the new indictment is evidence of violent crimes - including Carneglia's purported hits - from turncoats who had been flipped after recent convictions related to a Gambino crew operated by Ronald "Ronnie One Arm" Trucchio, who reports to the Corozzo brothers.
Several members of that crew close to Trucchio and John "Junior" Gotti Jr. provided firsthand knowledge of murders and other violence, a source said.

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