By TOM HAYS
The Associated Press
NEW YORK, N.Y. - Two detectives accused of doubling as mob hitmen pleaded not guilty Thursday at their federal court arraignment on charges including murder, drug distribution and money laundering.
Louis Eppolito and Stephen Carapappa have denied any wrongdoing in a case that has stunned the city’s law enforcement community.
Prosecutors allege Eppolito, 56, and Caracappa, 63, were paid thousands of dollars a month by the Luchese organized crime family to moonlight as Mafia hit men who kidnapped and killed at least eight rival gangsters in the 1980s and early 1990s before both retiring in Las Vegas.
In one case in 1990, the detectives allegedly were paid $65,000 to kill Edward Lino, a Gambino family member accused of threatening a high-ranking member of the Luchese crime family. The pair followed Lino from a social club, pulled him over, flashed their badges and shot him to death, authorities said.
Besides the eight victims named in an indictment, investigators also suspect the mob hired the detectives to kill a gem dealer, Israel Greenwald, amid fears he was cooperating in an investigation of the Luchese family. An informant directed the FBI to the parking lot where skeletal remains, believed to be those of Greenwald, were discovered on April 1.
Eppolito, whose father and grandfather were both in the Mafia, authored the book “Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob.” Caracappa, his former partner, helped form the NYPD Organized Crime Homicide Unit.