Convictions of Mafia Cops are Reinstated

The racketeering convictions of two retired New York City detectives who helped to kill at least eight men in their role as mob assassins were ordered reinstated by a federal appeals court. It ruled that a trial judge wrongly overturned the jury’s guilty verdicts two years ago.

The decision means that the two highly decorated detectives — Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa — will now face sentencing for their convictions in one of the most spectacular cases of police corruption in city history.

The two men seem certain to spend the rest of their lives in prison. In 2006, after they were convicted of racketeering conspiracy, the trial judge, Jack B. Weinstein of United States District Court in Brooklyn, issued but did not officially impose life prison sentences for each man. Then, saying the five-year statute of limitations for racketeering had run out, the judge overturned the convictions despite what he called “overwhelming evidence” that the two men were “heinous criminals” who were guilty of the “most despicable crimes of violence and treachery.”

But in a 70-page opinion released on Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, concluded that Judge Weinstein’s view of the conspiracy was too narrow, and that it had continued to exist within five years of when the men were charged.

Although murders and other serious crimes that the men were accused of occurred in Brooklyn in the 1980s and 1990s, prosecutors used more recent and less serious charges — money laundering and narcotics distribution in Las Vegas in 2004 and 2005 — to bring the earlier acts under the umbrella of an ongoing criminal enterprise.

Judge Weinstein, in throwing out the men’s convictions, had found that the recent crimes were “singular, sporadic acts of criminality,” and could not be considered part of the earlier conspiracy, which included kidnapping, bribery and obstruction of justice. Because the older crimes dated back more than five years, the men, thus, could not be prosecuted for them.

“The government’s case against these defendants stretches federal racketeering and conspiracy law to the breaking point,” Judge Weinstein wrote.

Judge Weinstein had also decided that the earlier conspiracy ended when the two detectives retired and left the New York area and other co-conspirators were arrested. But Judge Amalya L. Kearse, writing for the appellate panel, said Judge Weinstein’s views of the criminal enterprise were too restrictive, given the evidence presented at the trial.

For example, Judge Kearse said, even after the two detectives retired in the early 1990s, one gave his pager number to Burton Kaplan, a former associate of the Luchese crime family who was the government’s key witness and testified about the services that both detectives had provided to organized crime.

She said the appeals panel concluded that the criminal enterprise had not ended before 2000, and thus the prosecution was not disallowed. Joining in the decision were Judges Robert D. Sack and Peter W. Hall.

Benton J. Campbell, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, whose office had appealed the case, said: “We are gratified by the decision of the Court of Appeals reinstating the jury verdict against the two defendants, who can now be sentenced for the extremely serious crimes that they committed.”

A police spokesman had no comment. Lawyers for each of the two men, who have been held without bond, did not respond to phone messages seeking comment.

Prosecutors charged that the two men, who both joined the police force in 1969, had taken thousands of dollars to carry out the mob murders and to leak law enforcement information, disclosing the identities of witnesses and compromising investigations.

In the first of the mob killings, in 1986, the two detectives, driving in an unmarked police car and using a siren, pulled a jeweler named Israel Greenwald over on a Long Island road, according to a government brief summarizing the trial testimony.

The detectives told Mr. Greenwald that he was needed in a lineup concerning an automobile accident. They then drove him to a garage, where he was shot to death.

Prosecutors said the detectives had first offered their services to Mr. Kaplan through a cousin of Mr. Eppolito’s who was also a mobster. Mr. Kaplan entered into an agreement with the detectives to pay them regularly. “The defendants were paid $4,000 a month for information, and tens of thousands of dollars for murders and kidnappings,” the government brief said.

At the trial, the jury also found that the men murdered a capo in the Gambino family in his Mercedes-Benz on the Belt Parkway; and that they kidnapped a Staten Island man, put him in a trunk, and delivered him to another mobster who tortured him for hours before killing him.

Judge Kearse, in the decision, cited the payments to the detectives as one factor that supported the prosecution’s view that the conspiracy spanned the entire period of the indictment, from 1979 to 2005. She said that the jury had been told the principal purpose of the enterprise, as the indictment charged, was to generate money for the detectives, through legal and illegal activities.

Judge Kearse also noted that prosecutors had told the jury that the two men had “received money for each crime in New York, and they broke the law for money in Las Vegas.”

Thus, she ruled, the jury could have inferred that the conduct was “sufficiently similar in purpose” to show that “the enterprise that began in New York continued to exist in Las Vegas.”

Thanks to Benjamin Weiser

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Sopranos Actor to be Tried Separately for Murder of Off-Duty Cop

"Sopranos" actor Lillo Brancato will be tried separately from his allegedly trigger-happy cohort for the murder of an off-duty cop, a Bronx judge ruled Friday.

Brancato, who got his acting break as a teen in Robert De Niro's movie "A Bronx Tale," is slated to go on trial on Oct. 28.

Supreme Court Justice Martin Marcus ruled Brancato and pal Steven Armento will have separate days in court following a push by prosecutors to have the pair tried together.

The decision could benefit Brancato because the actor has claimed he had no idea Armento, 51, had a gun when the pair broke into an apartment next door to off-duty cop Daniel Enchautegui in search of drugs in December 2005.

When Enchautegui confronted them outside his home in Pelham Bay, the Bronx, Armento shot him, police said. Before he died, the officer returned fire, wounding Armento and Brancato.

"We want Lillo Brancato to be tried on his actions that night and the jury to make a decision based on his role or his lack of role," said his lawyer, Joseph Tacopina.

"Mr. Brancato is very different than his codefendant. He didn't have a gun, he didn't shoot anyone ... he got shot," said Tacopina.

Armento will be the first of the twosome to stand trial before Marcus on Sept. 29.
Armento's hospital statements, meanwhile, will be used during his trial despite a bid by his lawyer to have them tossed because he was heavily medicated during interviews with cops - a claim that was debunked by doctors.

Thanks to Chrisena Coleman

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Angelo Prisco, Captain with the Genovese Crime Family, Indicted for Multiple Crimes

MICHAEL J. GARCIA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; MARK J. MERSHON, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”); and WEYSAN DUN, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Newark Office of the FBI, announced that ANGELO PRISCO, a Captain in the Genovese Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra, has been charged by Indictment with various crimes including racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, robbery, extortion, firearms crimes, stolen property crimes, and operating an illegal gambling business. 

According to the Indictment filed in Manhattan federal court: From at least the 1970s through the present, PRISCO was a Soldier, and later a Captain, in the Genovese Organized Crime Family. As a Captain, PRISCO supervised, oversaw and profited from the criminal activities of his own crew of Genovese Family Soldiers and associates, operating in the New York City area and in New Jersey.

PRISCO committed various crimes on behalf of the Genovese Organized Crime Family. He oversaw and took part in a conspiracy to commit a string of home invasions and other armed robberies, during which the intended victims were robbed of cash proceeds of their businesses and other property. PRISCO also oversaw and participated in the extortion of Manhattan-based construction business; possessed, sold and transported stolen property; and operated an illegal gambling business.  If convicted, PRISCO, 69, of Tom’s River, NJ, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Mr. GARCIA praised the work of the FBI’s New York  and Newark Field Offices; the Orange County, New York District Attorney’s Office; the Westchester County, New York District Attorney’s Office; the New York State Police; the Morris County, New Jersey Prosecutor’s Office; the Rockaway Township, New Jersey Police Department; and the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation. 

Assistant United States Attorneys ELIE HONIG and LISA ZORNBERG are in charge of the prosecution.

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200 Mafia Suspects Arrested in International Operation that Spanned Italy, the U.S., Mexico, Panama, and Guatemala

More than 200 mafia suspects were arrested Wednesday in an international operation conducted by authorities in Italy, the United States, Mexico, Panama and Guatemala, Italy's anti-mafia department said.

The bust included the arrests - six in the US and 10 in Italy's southern Calabria region - of 16 alleged members of a notorious crime family of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian version of the mafia, the Rome-based National Anti-Mafia Directorate said in a statement.

Authorities also seized more than 15 tons of cocaine and 57 million dollars in cash, the statement said.

The operation was led by the Italy's Carabinieri paramilitary police's special anti-organized crime unit ROS with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

US authorities in Washington said 175 of the arrests were of individual suspected of participating in the drug smuggling ring, including three alleged leaders of the Gulf Cartel. The three men, Ezequiel Cardenas-Guillen, Heriberto Lazcano and Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, have been charged with conspiring to ship drugs into the United States from Mexico, the Justice Department said.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni congratulated the Carabinieri for their work saying the operation also 'shows the excellent co-operation' that exists between the Italian law enforcement agencies and those of other countries.

Authorities believe that Aquino-Colluccio 'Ndrangheta crime family members, based in Italy, the United States and Latin America, controlled a large cocaine-smuggling ring together with the so- called Cartel del Golfo (Gulf Cartel), a Mexican drug trafficking organization.

A major breakthrough in the investigation came when 'Ndrangheta boss Giuseppe Coluccio - one of Italy's top 30 most-wanted criminals - was arrested in Toronto and extradited to Italy in August. Coluccio is suspected of drug-trafficking, blackmail and establishing a criminal alliance involving the 'Ndrangheta and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra mafia.

Far less known than the notorious Cosa Nostra, the 'Ndrangheta has grown in recent years to expand its activities beyond its heartland in Calabria, the 'toe' of boot-shaped Italy.

The August 2007 killing of six Italians in Duisburg, Germany, believed to be part of a feud between to 'Ndrangheta crime families, made international headlines.

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Merging of Federal Organized Crime Strike Force Into Narcotics Unit Questioned by Former Prosecutors

The Organized Crime Strike Force, a prosecuting unit within the U.S. Attorney's Office that has a 20-year record of success in making cases against the Philadelphia mob, is being folded into a larger unit that will also focus on drug dealing and gang violence.

The changes are expected to take place in about a month, according to Laurie Magid, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Linda Hoffa, head of the office's Criminal Division. Both said the move would enhance the unit's ability to make cases.

Critics, including former prosecutors and FBI agents, said the consolidation could hinder the development of intelligence-based investigations and marginalize the fight against organized crime.

Magid said she wanted the same expertise that has been used against organized crime employed in cases against major drug gangs.

"Our commitment to fighting organized crime is in no way diminished," she said yesterday shortly after announcing the changes at a regularly scheduled staff meeting.

Magid, the former first assistant U.S. attorney, was named interim head of the office in July when Patrick Meehan, her boss, resigned.

"The strike force is not being disbanded," added Hoffa. "Far from it. We're putting together a stronger and larger team."

Nine federal prosecutors who work in the strike force unit are being transferred to new offices and will report to Thomas Perricone, currently the supervisor of the narcotics and dangerous drugs section. Perricone, who joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in 1994 from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, will head a newly formed narcotics and organized crime section.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Troyer, who was the supervisor of the strike force, will return to prosecuting cases under Perricone and will hold one of two senior litigation counsel posts created under the new structure. Troyer declined to comment last week.

Two former prosecutors who worked some of the biggest mob cases in Philadelphia history questioned the move, as did James Maher, a retired FBI agent who supervised an organized crime squad that in the 1980s and 1990s worked with the strike force to decimate one of the most violent Mafia families in America.

"That wasn't by chance, it was because of the commitment," said Barry Gross, a former federal prosecutor who worked dozens of mob cases during a career that spanned three decades.

A member of the prosecuting teams that convicted mob bosses Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, John Stanfa, Ralph Natale and Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, Gross said he was "surprised and disappointed" by the change.

Louis Pichini, a former strike force prosecutor who directed the 1988 racketeering prosecution of Scarfo and 16 of his top associates - a case that gutted the local mob family - said "the acid test will be in the implementation" of the proposed changes.

Pichini, who also headed the criminal division before leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office, said it was important for "the unit to maintain an identity and expertise" and to be given the time to develop long-term cases.

If not, he said, prosecutors working there would be interchangeable with prosecutors from any other section, and the expertise and mandate of the strike force would be lost.

Strike forces were set up in the 1970s to develop broad-based cases and intelligence in the fight against traditional organized crime groups like La Cosa Nostra and the Sicilian Mafia. Over the years, their targets have been expanded to include Russian and Eastern European crime cartels, Asian criminal organizations, and ethnic gangs like the Latin Kings.

In the Eastern District, the strike force left its biggest mark attacking the South Philadelphia-based mob that once dominated the local underworld.

Perricone said yesterday that he had "tremendous respect" for those accomplishments.

"Having grown up in South Philadelphia and seeing what the mob can do, I can tell you that not on my watch will I allow resources to be taken away," he said. But critics question whether what is being called an expansion is in fact a dilution of a unit that had a clear agenda and a defined focus.

One current federal prosecutor, who asked not to be identified, said that without a supervisor to advocate and promote strike force cases, investigations could get bogged down or marginalized in the internal politics and bureaucracy of the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Sources in both the U.S. Attorneys Office and the FBI have said that an ongoing investigation into reputed mob boss Joseph Ligambi and his top associates had gone "off track" twice because of bureaucratic squabbling.

Maher, who headed the FBI's organized crime squad in Philadelphia for nearly two decades, called the strike force "one of the most important weapons" in the war against organized crime. "Agents working the cases had attorneys who spoke the same language," Maher said in an e-mail response to questions about the consolidation.

He pointed out that the local mob family is built around "people who have grown up with one another in evolving relationships. ... To combat those relationships, you need agents and attorneys who don't need to learn them all over again when a case starts to develop."

Strike forces were once separate entities from U.S. Attorney's Offices. They were consolidated into those offices but remained separate units. Now they may be the victims of their own successes as well as the changing priorities of the Justice Department.

Traditional organized crime has taken a series of prosecutorial hits in most major cities and experts say that the American Mafia in 2008 is an organizational shell of what it was just 30 years ago.

In addition, the emergence of violent ethnic drug gangs, the proliferation of illegal weapons, and the need to focus on terrorism and its related threats have led federal prosecutors in other cities to reassign assets and resources, and consolidate strike force operations.

Thanks to George Anastasia

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