Two reputed mob cops were handed a double dose of good news yesterday, as a federal judge agreed to release them on bail – and then called much of the prosecution’s case “very thin” and “relatively stale.”
Brooklyn federal Judge Jack Weinstein said disgraced former NYPD Detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa will be placed under house arrest after each posts a $5 million bond. Weinstein said he saw “no reason to believe the defendants would not appear” in court.
The detectives are charged with using their positions as cops to obtain and leak information to organized crime members, resulting in eight mob murders between 1986 and 1992 – one of which, prosecutors say, was committed by Caracappa.
They are also accused of continuing their Mafia affiliations for over a decade and selling drugs in Las Vegas, where they lived across the street from each other.
Before ruling on the bail application, Weinstein asked prosecutor Robert Henoch how the drug charges and murder charges are linked, considering the decade-long gap between the two.
Recognizing that Cutler and Hayes will more than likely move to separate the two cases, Weinstein called the connection “very thin,” and that the murders are “relatively stale.”
If the judge allows a separation of the cases, the murder charges could go by the wayside, since they’re charged under Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations [RICO] laws that say charges can only be brought within five years of the crime.
While out on bail, Eppolito, 56, will stay in Plainview, L.I., with Angelo and Sheila Todisco, who are his wife Frances’ brother and sister-in-law.
Caracappa, 63, will stay with his 94-year-old mother at her Kramer Street home on Staten Island.
The earliest they can be released is ten days from today, in order to give the U.S. Attorney’s office a chance to appeal the decision. Henoch declined to comment on whether his office would exercise that option.
They will each have to sign over about $1 million in property, and would only be liable for the full $5 million if they broke any of the conditions of their release.
“I’m happy about this,” Eppolito’s lawyer Bruce Cutler said outside of court, speaking of the decision. “Now we can fight the case walking through the front door.”