New York police who led double lives as Mafia hitmen jailed

I once found myself at a Gambino wedding, so this caught my eye.

Two former New York City policemen were sentenced to life in prison yesterday by a federal judge who told the guilty pair that by moonlighting for the Mafia while wearing their shields they had committed "probably the most heinous series of crimes ever tried in this courthouse".

A jury in Brooklyn convicted Louis Eppolito, 54, and Steven Caracappa, 64, in April at the end of probably the most sensational police corruption trials ever seen in New York City. Once respected detectives with 44 years of service on the force between them, they were found guilty of helping to commit eight murders on behalf of the Luchese crime family between 1986 and 1990.

It was a case fraught with ironies. Caracappa had helped the New York Police Department set up its Mafia crime-fighting unit shortly before retiring in 1992. Eppolito, meanwhile, had never hidden the fact that his father had been a member of the Gambino crime clan. He even wrote a book about becoming an "honest cop" in a crooked family, Mafia Cop. - more