Kenny Guido
Well-known member
Mafia cops sentenced to life, again
BY JOHN RILEY | john.riley@newsday.com 7:15 PM EST, March 6, 2009 Two disgraced former New York City cops who sold their services to the mob for a six-year spree of crime and homicidal violence were resentenced to life in prison in an emotional federal court hearing in Brooklyn Friday.
"Twenty years ago these two lowlifes shot and killed my father," said Vincent Lino, whose father, Edward, a mob figure from Fort Salonga, was executed in 1992 by the two cops, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. "May youse have a long life in jail. That's all I have to say."
But it wasn't. As he left the stand, he turned to Caracappa, haggard and unshaven in a green smock and orange T-shirt, and Eppolito, still portly after years in jail. "Rot," he said to the two, as a courtroom packed with friends and relatives of the victims erupted in applause.
Yael Pearlman, the daughter of Israel Greenwald, a diamond dealer pulled over by the two cops on the Long Island Expressway in 1986 and buried in cement after being murdered in a garage, sobbed during an anguished statement in which she recalled tender moments with him as a child. She spoke to her dead father from the witness stand.
"Daddy, I cannot even bring myself to imagine the anguish that you must have felt in your final moments of life, when you were kneeling in front of your murderers, these convicts in this court, with a plastic bag over your head, tied with your own tie," said Pearlman, dressed in black. "Your heart must have been screaming out from under that plastic bag, 'My children! My children! My wife! My parents!' "
Prosecutors say Eppolito, 60, and Caracappa, 67, dubbed the " Mafia cops," were involved in at least eight murders from 1986 to 1992 while working for the Luchese crime family. A jury convicted the two disgraced detectives in 2006 on racketeering (which included the homicides), money laundering and narcotics charges, and they received life sentences. But U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein set aside the convictions and sentences after ruling that the statute of limitations on the crimes had passed.
The two remained imprisoned during the appeal, and last fall the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Weinstein's ruling, reinstating the convictions. Friday, Weinstein sentenced Eppolito to life plus 100 years with a $4.75 million fine and Caracappa to life plus 80 years and a $4.25 million fine. The ex-officers plan to appeal other issues in the case.
Both men continued to maintain they weren't guilty in brief statements to the court. "You will never take away my will to show how innocent I am," said Caracappa, who had asked to be excused from attending the hearing.
"I've been suffering for four years in jail. I can take it. I'm a man," said Eppolito. "If my father was killed, I'd be saying the same words. But I never did any of this."
Several victims' families have filed civil suits against the city over the ex-cops' actions. Joseph Longo, who represents the aging mother of Nicholas Guido, a Brooklyn telephone installer whom the two cops fingered for a 1986 mob hit in a case of mistaken identity, said he hoped the end of the criminal case would finally get Mayor Michael Bloomberg to push for a settlement.
"This journey is over but ours is not," said Longo, who attended the hearing with Guido's brother. "I got a lady in her 80s here. The city really needs to step up here."
BY JOHN RILEY | john.riley@newsday.com 7:15 PM EST, March 6, 2009 Two disgraced former New York City cops who sold their services to the mob for a six-year spree of crime and homicidal violence were resentenced to life in prison in an emotional federal court hearing in Brooklyn Friday.
"Twenty years ago these two lowlifes shot and killed my father," said Vincent Lino, whose father, Edward, a mob figure from Fort Salonga, was executed in 1992 by the two cops, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. "May youse have a long life in jail. That's all I have to say."
But it wasn't. As he left the stand, he turned to Caracappa, haggard and unshaven in a green smock and orange T-shirt, and Eppolito, still portly after years in jail. "Rot," he said to the two, as a courtroom packed with friends and relatives of the victims erupted in applause.
Yael Pearlman, the daughter of Israel Greenwald, a diamond dealer pulled over by the two cops on the Long Island Expressway in 1986 and buried in cement after being murdered in a garage, sobbed during an anguished statement in which she recalled tender moments with him as a child. She spoke to her dead father from the witness stand.
"Daddy, I cannot even bring myself to imagine the anguish that you must have felt in your final moments of life, when you were kneeling in front of your murderers, these convicts in this court, with a plastic bag over your head, tied with your own tie," said Pearlman, dressed in black. "Your heart must have been screaming out from under that plastic bag, 'My children! My children! My wife! My parents!' "
Prosecutors say Eppolito, 60, and Caracappa, 67, dubbed the " Mafia cops," were involved in at least eight murders from 1986 to 1992 while working for the Luchese crime family. A jury convicted the two disgraced detectives in 2006 on racketeering (which included the homicides), money laundering and narcotics charges, and they received life sentences. But U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein set aside the convictions and sentences after ruling that the statute of limitations on the crimes had passed.
The two remained imprisoned during the appeal, and last fall the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Weinstein's ruling, reinstating the convictions. Friday, Weinstein sentenced Eppolito to life plus 100 years with a $4.75 million fine and Caracappa to life plus 80 years and a $4.25 million fine. The ex-officers plan to appeal other issues in the case.
Both men continued to maintain they weren't guilty in brief statements to the court. "You will never take away my will to show how innocent I am," said Caracappa, who had asked to be excused from attending the hearing.
"I've been suffering for four years in jail. I can take it. I'm a man," said Eppolito. "If my father was killed, I'd be saying the same words. But I never did any of this."
Several victims' families have filed civil suits against the city over the ex-cops' actions. Joseph Longo, who represents the aging mother of Nicholas Guido, a Brooklyn telephone installer whom the two cops fingered for a 1986 mob hit in a case of mistaken identity, said he hoped the end of the criminal case would finally get Mayor Michael Bloomberg to push for a settlement.
"This journey is over but ours is not," said Longo, who attended the hearing with Guido's brother. "I got a lady in her 80s here. The city really needs to step up here."