New York City’s so-called Mafia cops will get life prison terms for what the New York Daily news calls “the worst betrayal of the badge in the NYPD’s history.” There will be no possibility of parole for ex-detectives Louis Eppolito, 57, and Stephen Caracappa, 64, convicted of “the most heinous series of crimes ever tried in this courthouse,” U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein of Brooklyn said yesterday. The judge delayed imposing sentence until he rules on legal motions to throw out their convictions.
The defendants participated in eight gangland murders while on the payroll of the Luchese crime family. They sat stone-faced as five family members of murder victims urged the judge to give them the maximum penalty. “Remember me, Mr. Eppolito? The guy you put away for 19 years?” bellowed Barry Gibbs, who served nearly two decades in prison for murder until state prosecutors developed evidence that he was framed. Outside court, Gibbs was asked what Eppolito will experience in prison. “Every day in jail is like a million years,” he said. “Psychologically it’s going to break [him] down, like it did to me.”
Link: http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/424087p-357791c.html