U.S. v. Eppolito
| Decision Date | 30 June 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 05-CR-192.,05-CR-192. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. Louis EPPOLITO and Stephen Caracappa. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
Daniel Nobel, New York, NY, for Defendant Stephen Caracappa.
The Law Offices of Joseph A. Bondy, by Joseph Aaron Bondy, Beth Hailey Citron, New York, NY, for Defendant Louis Eppolito.
United States Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York, by Robert W. Henoch, Mitra Hormozi, Daniel E. Wenner, Brooklyn, NY, for the United States.
The evidence presented at trial overwhelmingly established the defendants' participation in a large number of heinous and violent crimes, including eight murders. While serving as New York City police detectives, the defendants used their badges not in service of the public, but in aid of organized crime. They kidnapped, murdered, and assisted kidnappers and murderers, all the while sworn to protect the public against such crimes.
Nevertheless, an extended trial, evidentiary hearings, briefings and argument establishes that the five-year statute of limitations mandates granting the defendants a judgment of acquittal on the key charge against them—racketeering conspiracy. As a result of spillover prejudice resulting from the trial of that charge with other crimes charged in the indictment, defendants are entitled to a new trial on the remaining charges.
After a lengthy investigation, defendants Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were indicted on March 9, 2005 and arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada. In a series of superseding indictments, they were charged with participating in a racketeering conspiracy in violation of section 1962(d) of Title 18 of the United States Code ("RICO"). The wide-ranging conspiracy described in the final superseding indictment was alleged to have begun in New York City in the early 1980s and continued in Las Vegas until the date of the defendants' arrest in 2005.
The charged enterprise consisted of the two defendants, three members and associates of organized crime—Frank Santoro, Jr.; Burton Kaplan; and Anthony Casso— and unnamed others. Its purpose was to generate money for its members and associates through legal and illegal means. According to the allegations in the final superseding indictment, the members and associates of the enterprise sought to:
a. Enrich members and associates of the Enterprise through assisting La Cosa Nostra ("LCN"), a nationwide criminal organization that engaged in, and the activities of which affected, interstate and foreign commerce;
b. Preserve and protect the ability of the Enterprise to enrich its members and associates through the use and abuse of the facilities of the New York City Police Department;
c. Promote and enhance the criminal activities of the Enterprise and its members and associates; and
d. Keep victims and others in fear of the Enterprise and its members and associates through violence, intimidation, abuse of positions of trust and threats of violence.
Alleged were seventeen predicate acts creating a pattern of racketeering activity. Fourteen of the racketeering acts— charges of murder, murder for hire, kidnaping, bribery, criminal facilitation, tampering with and retaliating against informants, and obstruction of justice— occurred in New York City between 1986 and 1991, while one or both of the defendants were members of the New York City police department ("the New York acts"). Of the remainder ("the Nevada acts"), one act—conspiracy to engage in unlawful monetary transactions, charged against defendant Eppolito alone—took...
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