A week after Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were released on $5 million bail, the feds are poised to up the ante for the former NYPD detectives and charge them with another mob murder and a plot to kill a federal prosecutor, Gang Land has learned.

The new charges involve the 1986 slaying of gem merchant Israel Greenwald – the first of nine slayings the “Mafia Cops” allegedly took part in – and a plan to murder a then-assistant U.S. Attorney, Charles Rose, that was triggered by Luchese underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso.

Sources say the additional charges, called “predicate acts,” as early as today will be tacked on to the current racketeering conspiracy indictment that accuses Messrs. Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 63, of taking part in eight mob slayings and three failed murder plots between 1986 and 1991.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Henoch announced plans to add the Greenwald murder to the indictment three weeks ago when Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein ruled that the retired detectives were not dangers to the community at the present time and ordered them released under strict house-arrest conditions.

Sources say Judge Henoch and co-prosecutors Mitra Hormozi and Daniel Wenner have also wrapped up their investigation into allegations that the ex-detectives were involved in a Casso-orchestrated plan to rub out the mob prosecutor, and that they expect to add that charge in the same expanded indictment. The new charges are not expected to alter the defendants’ bail status, but will likely push the trial back to next year.

As Gang Land disclosed last month, turncoat mob associate Burton Kaplan has told the feds that “the cops” gave him an address where Rose had maintained an apartment – 254 Park Avenue South – as part of a plot Casso had set in motion to kill the prosecutor.

Sources say Kaplan, who admits being an intermediary between Casso and the detectives between 1986 and 1993, has confirmed details about the murder conspiracy that Casso himself first disclosed to the FBI when he began cooperating in 1994. In what must have been a surreal experience for the late prosecutor, Rose himself helped debrief the gangster about the plot to murder him.

Sources say the feds have tape recordings of January 1993 conversations between Gaspipe and a trusted capo that will help corroborate Kaplan’s account of the plot to kill Rose, as well as the participation in the scheme of the ex-detectives.

Casso and George “Georgie Neck” Zappola were picked up on wiretaps during an investigation by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office that led to Casso’s arrest on January 19, 1993, at the home of a one-time high school sweetheart in Mount Olive, N.J.

The plot to kill Rose began in late 1991 and ended only with Gaspipe’s arrest two years later, Casso told the feds in early 1994, according to FBI reports obtained by Gang Land.

Casso schemed to kill the prosecutor because he suspected Rose of leaking information to Newsday, according to the FBI reports. The information concerned an architect who had worked on Casso’s home and was killed in September 1991, allegedly because he began an affair with Casso’s wife after the gangster became a fugitive in May 1990.

Casso, who fled his Mill Basin home after “the cops” tipped him about his imminent arrest two days before it was scheduled to occur, stayed in contact with Kaplan – and up to speed on the hunt for Rose – via secret visits and the use of cell phones, pagers, and public phones, according to the FBI reports.

After Kaplan forwarded him Rose’s address – “the cops” never learned the prosecutor had moved to the Upper East Side – Casso enlisted Zappola to visit the apartment building and make sure Rose really lived there, the FBI reports said.

Four days before his arrest, on January 15, 1993, Casso was heard asking Zappola if he had been “by the apartment anymore,” according to a transcript obtained by Gang Land. “I always wondered if there was names on the bells,” he said.

“The other day, there was two guys,” Zappola said. “One was cleaning and one was like, you know, with a uniform, you know, like I guess the door guy.”

Casso: “I wonder if we could scheme something just to get in the lobby to look at the names on the mailboxes?”

Zappola: “Yeah, I could do that.”

Casso: “At least you know you got the right …”

Zappola: “Right, it ain’t that secure.”

Casso: “No, but you …”

Zappola: “All right, I’ll go … right there.”

Casso: “Yeah, at least if you see the last name.”

Zappola: “I seen a phone [for an intercom system], I think I seen a phone … you know with the names on the phone, if I’m not mistaken.”

Casso: “I don’t know maybe we’ll go look, at least we know we ain’t wasting our time.”

Zappola: “But they said that’s it.”

Three days later, nature prevented Casso from hooking up with Kaplan, according to a transcript of that conversation between Gaspipe and Georgie Neck.

Using his usual code words – “the old guy” – to refer to Kaplan, Casso said he had cancelled a meeting with him because of stomach problems, and would seek help at a local emergency room or doctor’s office. “I can’t meet the old guy. I can’t make it to the car. I go to the bathroom every minute. I can’t go meet him. I’ll go to the bathroom in my pants.”

The following day, Zappola, who was also a fugitive at the time and would evade capture for two more years, also got flu-like symptoms and developed a “splitting headache.” Casso, who had seen a doctor and was taking his medicine, advised Georgie Neck to call an associate to take him to see a doctor.

And when he called his associate, Casso added, Zappola should tell him that Gaspipe needs a favor.

After making sure Georgie Neck had a pencil, Gaspipe dictated the name of a woman and an address in Staten Island and instructed Zappola to tell the associate to have a florist send her three dozen roses and a couple of birthday balloons with a card that said: “Happy Birthday mom. From your son Anthony.”

Within minutes after the dutiful son ended the conversation, FBI agents used a battering ram to break down the door of the home on Waterloo Drive and took Casso into custody, where he’s been ever since.

This column and other news of organized crime will be available later today at www.ganglandnews.com.