Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa

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Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa are two former police officers from New York City. In 2006 they were convicted of various crimes, including murder, on behalf of the New York Mafia during the 1980s whilst they were still NYPD detectives.

Louis Eppolito was the son of Ralph "Fat the Gangster" Eppolito and knew a number of Mafia members through his family. However, Eppolito claimed to have avoided the Mafia lifestyle and became a New York police detective, a job which garnered him a number of headlines. He was a suspect in a corruption case involving Rosario Gambino in 1983, but was cleared. He claimed he was discriminated against during the proceedings.

By 1985, authorities say, Eppolito and Caracappa were working for the mob. Stephen Caracappa was at this point a member of Organized Crime Homicide Unit based in Brooklyn. They continued their crimes after they were retired.

Eppolito retired as a police officer in 1990. In his book, he cites his tarnished reputation over the Rosario Gambino corruption case as a reason for leaving. Over the next decade he had a minor career as an actor, with small roles in movies including Predator 2 and, ironically, the gangster film Goodfellas. In 1992, Eppolito wrote a book, Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob, in which he spoke of his attempts to avoid being dragged into the criminal life and fight for his reputation as a result of the Rosario Gambino corruption case.

Stephen Caracappa had worked in the NYPD's organized crime unit in Brooklyn before he retired on a disability pension in 1992. He subsequently worked as a private investigator.

Both men, who were lifelong friends, moved to Las Vegas following their retirement.

In 1994, Anthony Casso, a member of the Lucchese crime family, became an informant and first brought the authorities' attention to Eppolito and Caracappa. Among other things he alleged that, in 1986, the two police officers kidnapped and murdered a member of the Gambino family named James Hydell on the orders of rival mobsters.

After a long investigation, both Eppolito and Caracappa were arrested in March 2005 and charged with racketeering, obstruction of justice and eight counts of murder, including that of James Hydell. They are also accused of conspiring to murder Sammy Gravano, the famous informant who helped put John Gotti behind bars.

On April 6, 2006, Eppolito and Caracappa were convicted on all charges. On June 5, 2006, Eppolito and Caracappa were sentenced to life in prison. Parole status was not given.

On June 30, 2006, a judge threw out a racketeering murder conviction against the two detectives on a technicality - the five-year statute of limitations had expired on the key charge of racketeering conspiracy. (Although there is no statute of limitations for murder in the State of New York, the case had been prosecuted in federal court because it was thought more likely to yield a conviction.)

The pair are on 23-hour-a-day lockdown in a federal prison in Brooklyn while prosecutors appeal the judge's decision.

A new book about the two disgraced former detectives, The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia by Guy Lawson and William Oldham, was published in hardcover by Scribner in November 2006.

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