Pubdate: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 Source: Seattle Times (WA) Copyright: 2006 The Seattle Times Company Contact: http://www.seattletimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409 Author: Anthony M. DeStefano, Newsday Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) 2 "MAFIA COPS" WIN RETRIAL NEW YORK -- They did the crimes but might not do the time. In a stunning development Friday, a federal judge threw out key racketeering-conspiracy convictions against "Mafia Cops" Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa -- convictions that included involvement in eight gangland killings from 1986 to 1991 -- because of a conflict with the federal five-year statute of limitations. U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein, in a 77-page ruling, said the trial "overwhelmingly established" the guilt of Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, in the slayings and other crimes, but wrote that the legal issue compelled him to acquit them. "As a result of spillover prejudice resulting from the trial of that charge [racketeering conspiracy] with other crimes charged in the indictment, defendants are entitled to a new trial on the remaining charges," Weinstein said. He ordered a new trial for both men on charges of drug dealing and, in Eppolito's case, money laundering. The retrial would involve charges that Eppolito and Caracappa were involved in a small methamphetamine transaction in Nevada, where they both lived after retiring from the New York Police Department. "We intend to pursue an appeal," said Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf. Should the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverse Weinstein's decision, the provisional sentences of life imprisonment he had given Eppolito and Caracappa would be reinstated. Bail applications for the jailed defendants, who were convicted April 6, are expected to be filed. Lawyers reacted with astonishment as news of the ruling ricocheted around the legal community. "We won the case! We won the case!" Edward Hayes, who represented Caracappa at trial, said when told of the decision. Hayes and Bruce Cutler, who represented Eppolito at trial, split with their clients after the convictions. Eppolito and Caracappa said the lawyers' representation of them was poor, an assessment with which Weinstein disagreed. The defendants hired new lawyers, who brought the motions that resulted in Friday's acquittals. "I guess Rae [Koshetz] and I didn't do such a bad job after all," Hayes said of work he and his co-counsel did in researching the statute-of-limitations issue for the trial. Eppolito and Caracappa were indicted on March 9, 2005. The most recent killing in the case took place in May 1991. Generally, under federal criminal law, crimes alleged in a racketeering conspiracy have to have occurred within five years of the indictment. Before trial, Weinstein frequently expressed reservations about whether crimes so far in the past could be prosecuted within the five-year statute of limitations. To address the conflict, federal prosecutors charged Eppolito and Caracappa with involvement in a Nevada drug sale in late 2004 and early 2005. Prosecutors maintained the Nevada crime was part of the original racketeering-enterprise conspiracy, thus extending the alleged conspiracy beyond the crucial cutoff date of March 9, 2000. Weinstein denied a defense pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment, saying the nature of the alleged crimes required a full trial. When the jury convicted Eppolito and Caracappa in April, the panel specifically found the conspiracy continued beyond March 9, 2000. Friday, Weinstein stressed that prosecutors had proved the defendants were involved in eight slayings, two kidnappings and other wrongdoing. But as a matter of law, he said that after Eppolito's and Caracappa's retirement from the department, by early 1990, "the conspiracy that began in New York in the 1980s had come to a definitive close." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman