Lawyers Offer Closing Arguments In the ‘Mafia Cops’ Trial

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The New York Sun

A former detective accused of leading a double life as a hitman for the mob was a dedicated lawman and aspiring screenplay writer who was fingered by corrupt government cooperators, his lawyer said during a blustery closing argument at the racketeering trial.


Louis Eppolito, after retiring to Las Vegas in the early 1990s, “was creating stories, writing stories,” his attorney, Bruce Cutler, told the jury yesterday. “There’s nothing illegal about writing scripts.”


Authorities say Mr. Eppolito, 57, and his ex-partner, Stephen Caracappa, 64, were involved in eight killings between 1986 and 1990 while on the payrolls of the New York Police Department and Luchese crime family underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso. The so-called “Mafia cops” allegedly accepted $4,000 a month to help Casso silence informants and rub out rivals.


The federal jury in Brooklyn was to begin deliberations today. If convicted, the defendants would face possible sentences of life in prison.


In a sometimes booming voice, Mr. Cutler attacked the credibility of two key government witnesses – confessed drug dealer Burton Kaplan, who claimed he was the middleman between Casso and the detectives for the hits, and admitted embezzler Steven Corso, who wore a wire while offering the defendants drug money to finance a film project at a 2004 meeting in Las Vegas.


Kaplan “led a double life, a triple life, even a quadruple life,” Mr. Cutler said.


The lawyer described Corso as a “sophisticated, unctuous, polished, lowlife thief.” He labeled a third witness – a sixth-grade dropout who testified he was forced to dig the grave of one victim while Eppolito stood guard – a “subhuman gnome.”


The witnesses “have no heart, they have no soul, like these television screens,” Mr. Cutler said, gesturing to courtroom monitors. “There’ll be no redemption in this temple of justice.”


During a rebuttal, prosecutor Robert Henoch argued that the defense never explained why Kaplan knew personal details about the lives of “Brooklyn’s finest.” He also asked jurors to focus on Corso’s testimony about asking the ex-officers to help him score drugs for some potential film backers from Hollywood who were visiting Las Vegas in 2005.


The partners “could have walked away,” Mr. Henoch said. Instead, he said, “Those men went right into a drug deal.”


The defense has argued the drug charges were cooked up and tacked onto the case solely to overcome the five-year statute of limitations on the killings. The government contends all the crimes were part of a two-decade conspiracy.


Prosecutors can bring charges “within five years of the end of the conspiracy,” Mr. Henoch said. “This one never ended. You know that from the drug deal.”


Mr. Henoch closed by urging jurors, “Make this a temple of justice – hold them accountable.”


The New York Sun

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