Cosa Nostra News

The story of the two decorated NYPD detectives who moonlighted as hitters for the Luchese crime family may soon play out on television screens near you.  Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso Emmy Award-winning Boardwalk Empire creator/Sopranos executive producer Terence Winter has “committed” to writing and developing the series that will tell the story of the Mafia Cops , aka Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, a recent New York Post report blared. Caracappa and Eppolito were former NYPD detectives who worked for the Mafia in New York City, primarily for the underboss of the Luchese crime family, in the 1980s and early 1990s . The two retired detectives were finally indicted in 2005 and then convicted in 2006 of eight counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, plus labor racketeering, extortion, narcotics, gambling, and obstruction of justice. In 2009, Caracappa was sentenced to life plus 80 years and Eppolito to life plus 100 years. (Caracappa died on April 8, 2017 at age 75 of can...

Eppolito, left, and Caracappa -- the Mafia cops who worked for Gaspipe Casso. From The New York Law Journal: Nearly three decades after two New York City police officers carried out murders for organized crime, families of "Mafia Cops" victims can proceed with some of their claims against the city. Ruling on seven cases regarding New York City's purported liability for Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa's notorious actions, Eastern District Judge Raymond Dearie ( See Profile ) said the plaintiffs overcame timeliness hurdles and made arguments about deliberate indifference and causation that were sufficient to raise factual issues for a jury. Though Dearie said the plaintiffs presented federal municipal liability claims that could withstand the city's summary judgment motion in Pipitone v. City of New York , 06-cv-145, he dismissed their state law claims.

Mobsters, even once the game is over and they are sentenced to life, are not ones to give up so quickly. In  The Good Rat , Jimmy Breslin's book of musings about the mob, Burt Kaplan and the murderous NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, he related how Vic Orena thought he had a legal way over the wall. Orena had waged war for ownership of the Colombo family but lost when he got two life sentences plus 80 years courtesy of U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein, age 84, a judge who, Breslin writes, "knows that numbers, as in years in prison, not speeches, are the way to end the Mafia." Three of the five families tried to stop the third Colombo war. Orena, sent to cool his heels -- forever -- in Atlanta was soon on a bus back to Weinstein's courtroom after his lawyers entered a motion to throw everything against Orena out the window. The trip took weeks, and Orena "spent the nights with bugs and rodents in county jails" on his way...