A jury in Brooklyn yesterday convicted Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa of murdering for the mob while they were employed as NYPD detectives.

The list of crimes that the two “mafia cops” were charged with was very long, but the jury’s answer was the same in every instance: “Defendant Eppolito proved, Defendant Caracappa proved.” Those words, repeated more than 50 times in the soothing voice of a court clerk, contain the story of one of the most terrifying police betrayals in New York City history.

The jury found the former NYPD detectives guilty of 17 racketeering acts, which, prosecutors said, comprised a career of crime, spanning murders committed 20 years ago to involvement in the drug trade in Las Vegas, where the two men retired to the same street block.

Before an audience that included both the relatives of the murdered and curious onlookers, Judge Jack Weinstein of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn revoked bail for each defendant and scheduled sentencing for May 22. Both men face life imprisonment.

During the nearly month-long trial, prosecutors asserted that the pair of once highly regarded former detectives killed for a Luchese crime family underboss, Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso. They were put on the mob’s payroll for the murders and for the confidential police information they divulged.

The jury convicted the pair of detectives of a role in eight murders, including one that began as a phony police traffic stop. Prosecutors have said that the two former officers were wearing their police badges while involved in some of the murders, which occurred between 1986 and 1990. The victims range from mob associates to a man mistaken for a mobster because he bore the same name as the intended target. The remains of one victim were discovered buried under concrete last year.

“Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa perverted the shield of good and turned it into a sword of evil,” the U.S. attorney whose staff prosecuted the case, Roslynn Mauskopf, said in a statement delivered outside the courthouse. “They didn’t deliver us from evil. They were evil personified. They did it as cops and they did it as mafia cops.”

Caracappa, 64, had served on the NYPD’s Major Case Squad. Eppolito, 57, who was the son of a Gambino crime family member, had written an autobiography called “Mafia Cop,” and tried writing screenplays following his retirement in 1990 from the police department.

After the verdict was read, U.S. marshals escorted the two men from the courtroom, providing Eppolito just enough time to first remove his tie and leave it behind.

As he discharged the jurors, Judge Weinstein told them that they were free to speak of the case, but urged them not to. The jury had deliberated since Wednesday morning and reached a verdict at about 2 p.m. yesterday.

As the courtroom emptied, additional testimony could be heard in the hallways and outside the courthouse, as family members of the victims and of the convicted men told of grief and anger.

Neither Eppolito nor Caracappa, who were arrested in March 2005, testified on their own behalf during the trial. The attorneys of both men have maintained throughout the trial that their clients are innocent. Caracappa’s lawyer, Edward Hayes, spoke of an appeal.