Pubdate: Sat, 01 Jul 2006
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2006 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Alan Feuer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

JUDGE ACQUITS 2 EX-DETECTIVES IN MOB KILLINGS

A federal judge tossed out the racketeering convictions of two 
retired New York City detectives yesterday -- including eight murders 
for the mob -- because the statute of limitations had run out, 
despite citing overwhelming evidence that the men had committed 
"heinous and violent crimes."

The ruling by Judge Jack B. Weinstein entirely reversed the 
conviction of the two detectives, Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen 
Caracappa, who were found guilty in April of some of the most 
stunning corruption charges in the city's history.

Although a jury found that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had 
participated, as paid assassins, in killings for the mob, the judge 
acquitted the two men on the murder counts of the racketeering 
conspiracy, though not on evidentiary grounds. But the judge left 
open the possibility that the prosecution could seek to retry the 
defendants on a drug charge, and Mr. Eppolito, alone, on a 
money-laundering count.

The ruling, in a 102-page order that touched upon Thomas More and the 
sanctity of the Constitution, was the latest and most severe turn in 
the 15-month case.

It shocked the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn, which 
said it would appeal. And it bitterly disappointed the families of 
the victims in the case, some of whom had given heart-rending 
testimony at the two men's sentencing last month, where they were 
given life terms.

The decision sent a surge of joy through the offices of the 
defendants' new lawyers, one of whom, Joseph Bondy, called it "the 
most substantial legal victory" in recent history.

It also threatened to disrupt the careers -- and the book deals -- of 
some investigators in the case. And it led to the bizarre prospect 
that the two detectives -- whom Judge Weinstein outright accused in 
his order of being stone-cold killers -- could walk free from federal 
detention in Brooklyn as early as next week.

The judge waxed eloquent in acknowledging that his decision might 
seem strange to some.

"It will undoubtedly appear peculiar to many people that heinous 
criminals such as the defendants, having been found guilty on 
overwhelming evidence of the most despicable crimes of violence, 
should go unwhipped of justice," he wrote.

"Yet our Constitution, statutes and morality require that we be ruled 
by the law, not vindictiveness or the advantages of the moment."

The judge also wrote that even though there was little doubt that Mr. 
Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had "kidnapped, murdered, and assisted 
kidnappers and murderers," he had no choice but to let them go 
because the five-year statute of limitations in conspiracy cases had run out.

His ruling was hardly the first mention of the statute of 
limitations. Virtually from the outset of the case, Judge Weinstein 
said he was queasy about the decision to accuse the men of an 
overarching conspiracy that included the eight gangland murders, all 
in Brooklyn in the 1980's and 1990's, and a much more recent -- and 
less serious -- charge of selling an ounce of methamphetamine in Las 
Vegas last year.

In October, the defense team seized upon the judge's qualms and moved 
to quash the case before the trial, saying, in essence, that the 
government had strapped the drug charge onto the murder charges "to 
freshen up" the case and to avoid the statute of limitations.

Judge Weinstein denied the motion, deciding instead to go to trial 
and see if the government could prove that an "ongoing criminal 
enterprise" indeed stretched from the streets of Brooklyn to the 
casinos and subdivisions of Las Vegas.

Judge Weinstein's ruling spiked that argument, and no matter how 
pained he seemed to be in vacating the convictions, he took the 
government to task. "The government's case against these defendants," 
he wrote, "stretches federal racketeering and conspiracy law to the 
breaking point."

There was a certain incongruity lurking in the fact that the statute 
of limitations was practically the first issue raised in pretrial 
hearings by the defendants' former lawyers, Bruce Cutler and Edward 
Hayes, who just this week were forced to appear in court to defend 
themselves against charges of incompetence that had been filed 
against them by the two detectives. Judge Weinstein threw those charges out.

Still, it was in keeping with the topsy-turvy nature of the case that 
the very argument that the fired legal team had offered in their 
former clients' defense was the one that eventually prevailed.

The judge's ruling provided a much more sweeping victory than the 
defendants would have gotten with a finding that their lawyers were 
incompetent.

In that case, they would have been retried. Now there can be no new 
trial on the racketeering charges, although a higher court could 
reinstate the convictions.

Reached at his office, Mr. Hayes was at first speechless -- a rarity 
for a man who once sang "Danny Boy" in open court.

He said the prosecution had made a grave tactical error by not 
allowing the case to be tried in state court, which has no statute of 
limitations on murder, instead of using the federal racketeering 
charges, which have the five-year limitation.

"But this is a Justice Department that more than any in my lifetime 
has shown a mad-dog desire to control everything and to ignore the 
law," he said. "And they paid the price in this case."

Mr. Cutler said it would have been difficult for a jury to acquit on 
what some might see as a technicality, but he praised Judge Weinstein 
for his independence.

"I take comfort in the fact that there are judges who do what they 
think is right," he said.

Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the United States attorney's office 
in Brooklyn, released a terse statement yesterday supporting the 
jury's verdict.

"The jury in this case unanimously found Eppolito and Caracappa 
guilty of racketeering and murder based on overwhelming evidence," 
the statement read.

"And based on the law that was given to them by the court, each of 
the 12 jurors specifically found that the defendants' heinous crimes 
were committed within the statute of limitations. We intend to pursue 
an appeal."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman