The Mafia Cops: Eppolito and Caracappa

The story of the “Mafia Cops” Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa is one of the worst scandals in the history of the NYPD. The two detectives turned out to be hitmen for the Lucchese Crime Family. The saga left at least 8 people dead and cost the city over eighteen million dollars in lawsuits. 

The Bad Seed

Louis Eppolito was born into a family with heavy ties to the mafia. His father Raph and uncle James were both made members of the Gambino Family. Louis and his cousin James Eppolito Jr. grew up around mobsters and both had dreams of becoming rich gangsters. While James followed his father into the mafia, Louis surprised everyone by becoming a cop in 1969. 

Eppolito neglected to inform the NYPD of his family’s mafia connections when he applied for the job. In 1977, he was promoted to detective. Louis seemed to be taking a more positive life path than the other males in his family. While his other family members were committing crimes, he was out there preventing crime. It was the type of life a Hollywood movie would be made about. 

In 1979, things went downhill for the Eppolitos within the Gambino Family. Jimmy Sr. was having trouble with his captain Nino Gaggi and one of Gaggi’s soldiers, Roy DeMeo. DeMeo and Gaggi were the big guns for the Gambinos. Jimmy Sr. went to Paul Castellano to complain of DeMeo and Gaggi dealing drugs, which is supposed to be a death sentence if proven. 

Jimmy Sr. underestimated Nino and DeMeo’s value to Castellano. They were Paul’s hitmen and some of the biggest earners in the family. While mafia rules dictated that they must be killed, Castellano sided with his favorite capo. Paul may have also known that Eppolito and son were also in the drug business. The trouble started when DeMeo screwed Jimmy Jr. on a drug deal. 

A meeting between the two sides was set up on October 1, 1979. DeMeo and Gaggi killed the Eppolitos that night, and then Nino got into a shootout with police. DeMeo got away, but Gaggi went to prison. One of the officers who investigated the crime scene was none other than Detective Louis Eppolito. He saw the bullet riddled bodies of his uncle and cousin. 

The Unholy Alliance

Eppolito first met Caracappa when they were working together on the Brooklyn Robbery Squad in 1979. By all outward appearances they were polar opposites. Louis was a big fat and gregarious guy, Caracappa was a very slender and introverted person. One trait they did share, was that they were both corrupt to the core. An unholy alliance developed between the two.

Among his peers in the NYPD, Louis’ mafia ties were well known. He was accused of passing police intelligence to members of the Gambino Family in 1984 but was eventually cleared in that case. It seems that even though the Gambino hierarchy had his family members killed, Epolito was still willing to do business with them. None of his peers believed Louis was innocent. 

Detective Caracappa was also viewed as a crooked cop by his peers. He didn’t have the mafia family background that Eppolito did, so he was a bit less scrutinized. But Caracappa was ice cold, and even willing to kill if the money was right. Together they fed information to the mob about their enemies and about ongoing investigations.

In February 1986, the two detectives would kill their first of many victims.When a mobster named Burt Kaplan suspected an associate of his may cooperate with authorities, he reached out to Eppolito and Caracappa. They pulled over Greenwald and kidnapped him. After bringing him to a secure location, they tied him up and put a bullet in the back of his head, for $25,000. 

Word of this killing got to Lucchese Family underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, who was impressed with the efficient work done by the detectives. A few months later, Casso hired the detective to find Jimmy Hydell, a lower level Gambino associate who had tried to kill Casso. Gaspipe didn’t want Hydell killed, he wanted him delivered, so he could do the job personally.

The mafia cops were happy to help. They went on the hunt for Hydell, even knocking on Hydell’s door and asking his mother where he was. After finding and kidnapping Hydell under the pretense of an arrest, they brought him to Casso. Casso then proceeded to torture Hydell. When Gaspipe got the information he wanted, he then finally killed Hydell. 

Mafia Cops For Hire

For their next job with Casso, Caracappa would get sloppy, although it would take years before justice was served. During the Hydell torture, Gaspie Casso got Hydell to give up the name of another Gambino associate involved in the Casso hit plot, Nick Guido. Casso wanted Guido found and killed too, and he hired the detectives to get the job . 

On November 11, 1986, Detective Caracappa ran Nick Guido’s name in a law enforcement database and pulled his information. Guido’s address was given to the mafia and he was killed on Christmas day. But there were two big problems. They killed the wrong Nick Guido, and Caracappa had left an electronic trail of the search which would later be found. 

The error angered Casso, but the murder of Nick Guido would not come back to haunt any of them for many years. So the kidnappings and murders continued. Now that they were working for Casso, the Gambinos were now a target. After killing an informant in 1990, they killed Gambino soldier and close Goti ally Eddie Lino. The Lino hit was payback for Gotti killing Castellano.

Just five months later, they were involved with the killing of another major Gambino player, Bobby Boriello, who was an acting capo under John Gotti Jr. Boriello was also involved with the Castellano hit and Casso wanted everyone responsible to be killed. Other bosses like Chin Gigante of the Genovese Family were on board with the plan to wipe out Gotti and his entire hierarchy. 

Taking A Victory Lap

Louis actually authored a book Mafia Cop: The Story Of An Honest Cop Whose Family Was The Mob. In the book, he presented himself as an honest cop who had family members in the mafia. Eppolito and Caracappa would go on to be known later as “The Mafia Cops”, but not for the reasons Eppolito wanted. They would become the most hated men to ever wear a badge.

Looking back, it’s clear Eppolito had a massive ego that needed to be stroked often. He went on a mini tour to promote his book in 1992, highlighted by his appearance on the Sally Jesse Raphael Show where “Lou” talked about It proved to be a terrible decision to go on the show, one that would contribute to their eventual demise. 

Six years after the death of her son Jimmy, Betty Hydell saw the Sally Jesse Raphael Show episode with Eppolito, playing up his honest cop angle. She remembered that this was the detective that showed up looking for Jimmy the day he disappeared. She watched as Eppoito got cheers from the audience and bragged about his bit parts in movies. 

Hydell’s mother knew that the man on the television might have been involved in the death of her beloved Jimmy. She contacted authorities after watching the show, but nothing would come of it for over another decade. Caracappa was furious with his partner in crime for the reckless move. His anger subsided as time went by and it appeared it might not come back to haunt them. 

Around this time, Eppolito and Caracappa both retired from the NYPD and bought homes in the same Las Vegas neighborhood. They still were doing business with the mafia and in 1993 were involved in a failed plot to kill John Gotti Jr. and several other New York mobsters. They were reputed to be hunting for Sammy “The Bull” Gravano after he turned witness against Gotti.

The real problems for the Mafia Cops started in 1994. In another shocking twist, Gaspipe Casso 

Became an informant. He was trying to get out of a long prison sentence and started offering up the goods on Eppolito and Caracappa. This should have spelled doom for the cops but luckily for them the relationship between Gaspipe and the FBI deteriorated and he was thrown out of the witness protection program.

Dirty Cops Exposed

What cae back to bite the cops was the cooperation of Burton Kaplan, the man who served as a liaison between the cops and the mafia. In 2005, they were both arrested and charged with racketeering and a shocking 8 counts of murder. One of the worst law enforcement scandals was being exposed in front of the world, but the cops weren’t going down quietly.

Shortly before going to trial, Stephen Caracappa made a surprising move by sitting down for an interview with Ed Bradley for 60 Minutes. It was a fascinating look into the eyes of an ice cold hitman. He simply denied all of the killings and corruption with his best poker face. “I have pride in myself Mr. Bradley, I wouldn’t do that” proclaimed the cop accused of killing at least 8 men. 

Remember that Ed Bradley had recently interviewed turncoat Lucchese Family underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, who offered up the goods on the mafia cops. Casso told Ed Bradley that he gave the detectives $45,000 for their services in the Hydell abduction and murder. They were paid $75,000 for the Lino hit, a significant bump in pay. 

Bradley at the time was well known for interviewing mafia members and often took heat for sometimes humanizing them, but he had a way of getting them to talk. In this interview, he clearly had the former detective on defense. The entire experience turned into a nightmarish backfire for Caracappa. 

Bradley pressed during the interview about why Nick Guido was killed by Casso shortly after Caracappa pulled his computer files back in 1986. Caracappa said he didn’t remember running Guido’s files but does not deny he did. Caracappa then dismissed the Lino murder accusation with a simple “I did not kill Eddie Lino, I’m not a cowboy”. Eppolito did not participate in the 60 Minutes interview.

The story was the same for the Hydell murder, he didn’t do it and in fact he never even met Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso. It would be an understatement to say the interview went bad for Caracappa. The point of doing the interview was to cast doubt on the case but it had the opposite effect. Bradley was not impressed or convinced, and nor was anyone else.

The End Of The Road

The evidence against the crooked cops was overwhelming and they were fully unmasked at trial. They were found guilty of the murders. In 2009, Eppolito was sentenced to life plus one hundred years. Stephen Caracappa got life plus eighty years. The sentences were fit for the heinous crimes committed by the pair.

The city of New York ended up paying over $18,000,000 in damages to the families of the mafia cops victims. The incident was a very costly embarrassment to the NYPD and the 50,000 officers it employs. Two of their detectives were longtime hitmen for the Lucchese Crime Family and often used their badges to pull over their prey. 

The disgraced cops were both fined $4,000,000. Caracappa was sent to prison in Florida to live out the rest of his days. He died of cancer on April 8, 2017. Louis Eppolito went to prison in Arizona to serve his time. He died of undisclosed reasons on November 3, 2019, putting an end to the worst scandal in NYPD history.