Convictions Tossed in "Mafia Cops" Case

Friends of mine: Louis J. Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

A federal judge tossed out the convictions of two retired New York City detectives today on racketeering charges — including eight murders for the mob — because the statute of limitations had run out, even though there was overwhelming evidence the men had committed "heinous and violent crimes."

The ruling by Judge Jack B. Weinstein reversed in its entirety the conviction of the two detectives, Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, who were found guilty in April of some of the most stunning corruption charges in the city's history. Although a jury found that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had participated, as paid assassins, in killings for the mob, the judge's order vacated the convictions, though not on evidentiary grounds.

The ruling, in a 102-page order that touched upon Sir Thomas More and the sanctity of the Constitution, was the latest —and most severe — turn yet in the 15-month case. It sent shock waves through the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn, which said it would appeal. And it sent a crest of disappointment through the families of the victims in the case, some of whom had given heart-wrenching testimony at the two men's sentencing last month, where they were given life terms.

It sent a surge of joy through the offices of the defendants' new lawyers, one of whom, Joseph A. Bondy, called it "the most substantial legal victory" in recent history. Meanwhile, it threatened to disrupt the careers — and the book deals — of some investigators in the case. And it led to the bizarre prospect that the two detectives — whom Judge Weinstein outright accused in his order of being stone-cold killers — could walk free from a federal jail in Brooklyn as early as next week.

The judge was poetic in acknowledging that his decision might seem strange to some.

"It will undoubtedly appear peculiar to many people that heinous criminals such as the defendants, having been found guilty on overwhelming evidence of the most despicable crimes of violence, should go unwhipped of justice," he wrote.

"Yet our Constitution, statutes and morality require that we be ruled by the law, not vindictiveness or the advantages of the moment."

The judge also wrote that even though there was little doubt that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had "kidnapped, murdered, and assisted kidnappers and murderers," he had no choice but to let them because the five-year statute of limitations in conspiracy cases had run out.

His ruling was not the first time the statute had come up. Virtually from the outset of the case, Judge Weinstein had said that he was queasy about the legal connection between the eight gangland murders, all of which occurred in Brooklyn in the 1980's and 1990's, and a much more recent — and less serious — charge of selling a single ounce of methamphetamine in Las Vegas last year.

In October, the defense team seized upon the judge's qualms and filed a motion to quash the case before the trial, saying, in essence, that the government had bootstrapped the drug charge on to the murder charges so as "to freshen up" the case and to avoid the statute of limitations.

Judge Weinstein denied the motion, deciding instead to go to trial and to see if the government could prove, as it said it could, that there was indeed an "ongoing criminal enterprise" that stretched from the streets of Brooklyn to the casinos and subdivisions of Las Vegas.

Judge Weinstein's ruling drove a legal spike directly through that argument and no matter how pained he seemed to be in vacating the convictions, he took the government to task for pushing the boundaries of conspiracy law.

"The government's case against these defendants," he wrote, "stretches federal racketeering and conspiracy law to the breaking point."

There was a certain irony lurking in the fact that the statute of limitations was practically the first issue raised in pretrial hearings by the defendants' former lawyers, Bruce Cutler and Edward Hayes, who just this week were forced to appear in court to defend themselves against charges of incompetence filed against them by the two detectives. Judge Weinstein tossed those charges out.

Still, it was in keeping with the topsy-turvy nature of the case that the very argument that the fired legal team had offered in their former clients' defense was the one that was eventually successful.

In either case the judge's ruling provided a much more sweeping victory than the mere new trial that the defendants would have gotten with a finding that their lawyers were incompetent. Now there can be no new trial on the murder conspiracy charges, although a higher court could reinstate the convictions and the prosecution can seek to retry the defendants on the drug charge and Mr. Eppolito, alone, on a money-laundering count.

Reached at his office, Mr. Hayes was at first speechless — a rarity for a man who once sang "Danny Boy" aloud in open court. He said the prosecution had made a grave tactical error by not allowing the case to be tried in state court, which has no statute of limitations on murder. "But this is a Justice Department that more than any in my lifetime has shown a mad-dog desire to control everything and to ignore the law," he said. "And they paid the price in this case."

Mr. Cutler said it would have been difficult for a jury to acquit on what some might see as a technicality, but he praised Judge Weinstein for his independence. "I take comfort in the fact that there are judges who do what they think is right," he said.

Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn, released a terse statement today supporting the jury's verdict. "The jury in this case unanimously found Eppolito and Caracappa guilty of racketeering and murder based on overwhelming evidence," the statement read. "And based on the law that was given to them by the court, each of the 12 jurors specifically found that the defendants' heinous crimes were committed within the statute of limitations. We intend to pursue an appeal."

Thanks to Alan Feuer