Histoires de Gangsters Mafia Cops Louis Eppolito et Stephen Caracappa
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TVTranscription
00:00 Louis Eppolito and Steve Caracappa will forever be known as the Mafia,
00:05 the murderers working for the Pègre's account.
00:08 I think the betrayal, the insignia of the police,
00:12 whatever the way they do it, is a heinous crime.
00:15 But no one has ever betrayed like them. Never.
00:18 You can't even imagine how many investigations have been compromised.
00:23 No one will ever know how many people they have killed.
00:27 This will go down in the biggest corruption case
00:30 in the New York police annals,
00:32 and even in the police force annals.
00:55 6th November, 1990.
00:58 After leaving the fast lane in New York,
01:02 two inspectors follow Eddie Lino,
01:04 a member of the Mafia, on a dark road.
01:07 They put the turn signal on, and they asked him to get out of the way.
01:10 Lino stops his car and looks at the two men in his rearview mirror.
01:14 He is not worried.
01:17 He thought the cops were stopping him
01:19 because they were used to shaking the Mafia a little.
01:22 The cops are the last people
01:25 that Eddie Lino will see.
01:28 The two inspectors, Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa,
01:36 who have sworn to protect and serve,
01:39 are Mafia killers,
01:41 and surely the most corrupt cops in the history of New York police.
01:49 The story that leads to this murder is long.
01:52 It begins in a family whose roots are planted on the wrong side of the law.
01:58 On July 22, 1948,
02:10 Louis Eppolito was born in the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn.
02:14 Only son of Tess, Ralph and Eppolito,
02:18 Louis belongs to a line that goes back very far in the ranks of the Mafia.
02:22 His grandfather is Diamond Lou,
02:25 friend and jeweler of the boss of the New York Mafia,
02:28 Lucky Luciano.
02:30 My great-grandfather Louis was Luciano's personal jeweler.
02:35 When there were new offenders,
02:37 he made them a watch that he offered them.
02:39 They said, "You have a watch from Diamond Louis."
02:42 Lou's sons, Jimmy and Ralph,
02:45 join the Mafia when they are young,
02:47 just like their brother, Freddy.
02:49 They quickly become the killer for the Gambino family.
02:54 They were arrested for all the reasons,
02:57 from the laundering of money to the racket,
02:59 and to the murder.
03:01 When Louis was 12, his father Ralph began to initiate him in the family business.
03:05 Money games are a key element of Eppolito's affairs.
03:11 Their facade, a bar in Brooklyn called The Grand Mark.
03:16 At the bar, Louis empties the ashes,
03:19 passes the broom,
03:20 and puts back envelopes on the whores waiting outside.
03:23 Louis's father greases the police officers' feet so that they leave him alone.
03:28 But for his son, there is a lesson to be learned from his wine jars.
03:32 The one who sells himself for a few dollars does not deserve respect.
03:37 My grandfather hated the blue.
03:41 He hated the police.
03:43 Louis learns other lessons about the Mafia from himself.
03:46 In 1963, his uncle Freddy, a hoodlum, gets bored to death.
03:53 Louis thinks it is the pressure of the life of the Mafia that killed him.
03:57 Even before leaving adolescence,
04:01 Louis has the opportunity to fear for his own life
04:03 when he is affected by a crisis of joint rheumatism.
04:06 He fights to regain health thanks to a strict program of physical exercise,
04:12 and starts working out when he enters high school.
04:15 He takes part in competitions and wins the title of Mr. New York City in 1967.
04:21 He had this extraordinary need for attention.
04:25 He spoke louder than everybody,
04:27 he was more imposing than everybody else.
04:30 Still a teenager, Louis falls madly in love with a classmate.
04:34 Just after the end of high school, in 1967,
04:38 the young couple gets married,
04:40 and two years later, a first son is born, Louis Eppolito Junior.
04:44 The joy of birth is entrenched by the loss of Ralph, Louis's father.
04:51 On March 8, 1968, he dies in his sleep of a heart attack and a stroke.
04:59 Ralph Eppolito was 52 years old.
05:03 At the funeral, Louis finds himself confronted with his father's Mafia past
05:09 when the troops come to pay tribute to his family.
05:12 A lot of them gave my father cards.
05:17 "Call this number, come here if you're looking for a job, come here, come do that."
05:21 The offers are tempting.
05:24 Louis has a family to feed and a small job without a future in a pet shop.
05:28 He decides to accept one of his proposals.
05:35 A local Mafia knows a union leader at the Manhattan post office.
05:39 Thanks to him, Louis gets a job there.
05:43 On March 12, 1968, he goes to work.
05:48 It won't last.
05:50 "Somebody bought him a room to go get a coffee. My father said I'm not a slacker."
05:56 Louis slams the door.
05:58 He returns to the pet shop and the gym.
06:02 He helps a friend train for the physical part of the entrance exam at the New York police.
06:06 The day of the exam comes and Louis decides to try his luck.
06:13 He oversteers the physical part, passes the writing without problem,
06:17 but then falls on a size obstacle.
06:19 "There's a tiny little box on the floor that says,
06:23 'If you or anyone in your family has been arrested or found guilty of a crime,
06:27 please have it signaled here.'
06:29 And then my father writes in black and white everything he can think of about the family."
06:33 In other times, Louis's ties to organized crime would have deprived him of the blue uniform.
06:39 But we are in the 1960s,
06:43 and most men with a physique like his, who could have served in the police,
06:48 are fighting in Vietnam.
06:50 Unemployment and poverty are ravaging the city of New York.
06:56 Crime and insecurity are increasing. We are losing the war against crime.
07:00 There was a lot of pressure to send out police on the streets.
07:04 In the days of the city, the city was ready to explode.
07:08 In 1969, Louis is admitted to the police academy.
07:12 After six months of training, Louis is assigned to the 63rd district of Brooklyn,
07:18 a few meters from his old favorite neighborhood.
07:23 In a way, his origins in organized crime make him a good cop.
07:27 He was surrounded by this other world throughout his whole childhood.
07:33 And this experience gave him a radically different view of the world.
07:38 He had a natural talent for being able to go and get bad guys.
07:45 But walking on the rope between his old and new life
07:50 proved to be dangerous, especially with the arrival of his new partner,
07:54 Stephen Karakapa, a not very talkative cop with a real killer instinct.
08:00 In 1969, Louis Eppolito patrols the streets of his old neighborhood in Brooklyn,
08:15 where his family has been running the mafia business for generations.
08:20 He had the reputation of being a very good cop.
08:23 But Louis chose to ignore the New York police rule
08:26 that forbade agents from meeting the mafiosi.
08:29 He claimed to be able to keep his distance with all this past.
08:35 It turns out that it's a lie.
08:39 At the beginning of his career in the police,
08:46 Louis Eppolito's locker is still empty, but he's not afraid to get his hands dirty.
08:50 You need guys who are able to go out on the street and be respected.
08:54 And Eppolito could be a big hit.
08:56 But if his life as a street cop is going well, it's not the case with his private life.
09:01 After only two years of marriage, Louis and his love of youth are separating.
09:06 Eppolito doesn't stay single for very long.
09:13 In 1971, during a vacation in Puerto Rico,
09:16 love strikes Louis in the heart.
09:18 Walking out of his room, my father says to the others,
09:22 "Did you feel that?
09:23 At that moment, the elevator door opens and my mother comes out.
09:26 He grabs her by the arm and says,
09:28 "Please tell me you live in New York."
09:31 She asks him why, and he says, "Because I'm going to marry you."
09:35 Louis starts courting the French woman Francesco Disco, 20 years old.
09:41 He continues his advances, and then returns to New York.
09:44 When Francesco finds out he's in the middle of a divorce, she tries to break up.
09:48 But Louis refuses to give up and ends up winning over his beloved.
09:54 A year after their first dance in Puerto Rico, they get engaged.
09:58 Twelve months later, they get married.
10:02 They settle in the neighborhood of Brooklyn, well known to Louis, and start a family.
10:08 The couple has three children, Andrea, Diana, and Tony.
10:12 Louis climbs the ranks of New York police and gets his detective's license in 1977.
10:19 Two years later, he is transferred to the Cops Unit
10:24 and sees himself affecting a new partner, Stephen Caracappa.
10:28 The two teammates make up.
10:34 Steve is tall and thin and has a mustache. My father is rather short,
10:38 and at that time he was not in good shape and gained weight.
10:41 Eppolito was a big blabbermouth, and he had a huge ego.
10:46 The other guy was stealthy, silent, very dangerous.
10:51 Louis always wore his tie as it was common at the time.
10:58 He had the look of a retired cop.
11:02 Steve always had his tie very well tied and had a more refined appearance.
11:06 But beyond appearances, the two policemen look very similar.
11:11 Stephen Caracappa was born on Staten Island in a modest family.
11:18 Born in 1941, he grew up in the Italian neighborhood where the mafiosi merge among the population.
11:28 When his family goes through a difficult time, he leaves high school and starts working.
11:32 He worked in construction sites. He loaded and unloaded trucks, things like that.
11:38 At 18, Stephen has enough to kill himself at work for a few dollars,
11:44 and he tries to make a little easy money.
11:47 With a friend, he enters a warehouse and steals a whole truck of construction equipment.
11:55 On January 5, 1960, they are arrested and imprisoned for qualified theft.
11:59 At his age, Stephen gains freedom of surveillance, but the crime remains on his case.
12:06 In 1966, he joins the army and serves in Vietnam.
12:12 Upon returning, he is a candidate to join the New York police.
12:16 He wanted to be a cop. It was a good public service job and it allowed him to have a gun.
12:22 It was a tough job. And I think one of the reasons he became a cop
12:27 is because in the police you can show that you are a tough guy.
12:30 Because of his case, he is at two fingers from not being admitted.
12:34 But he persists and is finally accepted.
12:39 The police need a lot of men in the streets to try to curb the wave of crime that threatens to destroy the city.
12:47 Once integrated, Caracappa proves that he is the perfect mix between audacity and street knowledge.
12:53 Caracappa was from the old school. He was tough. He was very intense and he was releasing something dangerous.
13:01 If he said to you, "If you do that, I'll kill you," you'd believe him.
13:04 At the Brooklyn Gang, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa make up a team.
13:09 The two men form the winning duo.
13:11 Caracappa was a discreet, almost stealthy kind of person.
13:17 Eppolito was more of a fist and my fist kind of person.
13:22 They were good cops, active cops.
13:25 Somehow, they both found themselves in an institution of more than 42,000 men.
13:30 But together, they are dangerous.
13:33 Eppolito and his familiar ties with the mafia. Caracappa and his cold and calculating mind.
13:40 I think they were two half-out-of-the-way, irregular people who fit perfectly.
13:45 They needed each other.
13:47 Eppolito needed Caracappa to lead him and Caracappa needed Eppolito for his contacts.
13:53 In their work as inspectors, the two men have access to confidential police information.
13:59 The kind of information that the mafia would pay dearly for.
14:04 It's such a terrible temptation.
14:07 You make so much money in a year and you can make so much money in an hour.
14:14 It's a frightening temptation.
14:16 A temptation that the two partners cannot resist.
14:21 In 1980, after being a team for only a year, the two men are separated.
14:28 Because of a budgetary cut, Eppolito ends up with the criminal, Benson Hurst.
14:34 And Caracappa is sent to the 84th district of Brooklyn.
14:39 But the separation only reinforces their secret partnership.
14:44 It gave them two sources of information.
14:47 And it was even more difficult to imagine that they worked together on other things.
14:52 With their job as police officers as cover, the two men are about to launch a devastating criminal enterprise.
15:08 In the early 1980s, after being a team for a year,
15:11 the New York City inspectors, Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, no longer wandered the streets together.
15:18 After their separation, their careers have taken a totally different path.
15:24 In the mid-1980s, Caracappa is the rising star of the Major Crimes Brigade,
15:30 an elite unit trained to fight the most important crimes.
15:35 But Louis Eppolito has to fight for his professional life.
15:39 Because the family ties with the Gambino family are haunting him.
15:45 On March 16, 1984, the police make a descent at the home of Rosario Gambino, the heroine's big boss.
16:01 In the attic, they find copies of confidential police reports detailing the police's information on Gambino's activities.
16:08 They are sent to the lab to search for fingerprints, which correspond to those of Inspector Louis Eppolito.
16:17 It is clear that Eppolito had to touch these documents for these fingerprints to be found on it.
16:24 But since he was not working on this case, there was no reason for him to have this file in his hands.
16:30 The New York police arrest Eppolito and give him two options.
16:34 Either he retires immediately with a pension, or he will be allowed to appear in court in front of a judge in the New York police's internal affairs division.
16:42 If he is found guilty, he will lose his job and his pension.
16:46 Some people have said things like, "You have that in your blood," or "Dogs don't bark."
16:55 After 16 years of service, it was painful, but not enough for him to give up.
17:01 Eppolito decides to stay and fight.
17:05 In April 1985, he faces the judge, with one of the biggest chances of his career at stake.
17:16 The evidence shows that Eppolito's fingerprints are on the files sent to Gambino.
17:22 But when the judge examines the file, he is not convinced.
17:25 The judge mixed up the brushes.
17:28 He thought that it was copies of the prints that were on the files,
17:32 and he thought that it was not convincing enough evidence to have him charged.
17:36 Eppolito is acquitted and resumes his service.
17:40 If he and Stephen Karakapa no longer work together, they have remained very good friends.
17:49 They have always been close. They were like brothers.
17:52 When they had other partners, we did not find it strange that they remained in contact.
17:56 Ask any cop if he still talks to his former partners, they will all say yes.
18:01 In 1985, one of the contacts of the Eppolito family offers the two men an offer they cannot refuse.
18:08 For Eppolito and Karakapa, this is the point of no return.
18:15 One of the Eppolito cousins belonging to the mafia,
18:19 has been sentenced to prison in Pennsylvania,
18:22 where he met a Jewish mafia member named Bert Kaplan.
18:26 Bert Kaplan was from the old school.
18:30 He played a very important role in the life of the New York mafia.
18:34 He was not a chatterbox and knew how to be discreet.
18:37 This time, Eppolito is not the only one who is in the police force.
18:43 Centora told Kaplan that he had a cousin in the police force,
18:49 and that if he needed a little help getting out, he would just call him.
18:55 Shortly after his release from prison, Kaplan had to work for the two policemen.
19:01 If someone was in the way of Kaplan, he was able to get killed.
19:08 Kaplan traffics treasure bonds.
19:13 He suspects one of his contacts to have stolen it.
19:16 A jeweller named Israel Greenwald.
19:20 He fears that Greenwald will give it to the federal government.
19:23 Kaplan hates balances.
19:25 Wherever he goes, there is nothing worse.
19:27 Kaplan asks Centora if his contact in the police force can take care of Greenwald.
19:32 He offers $30,000 in rewards.
19:36 Eppolito and Karakapa agree.
19:41 February 10, 1986.
19:44 Eppolito and Karakapa inspect Greenwald's home.
19:48 When they leave his house, they follow him in a police car.
19:53 Then they take out the turn signal and ask Greenwald to stop.
19:58 They show him their badge and ask him to follow them to the post.
20:05 They need him for an identification session.
20:09 Greenwald follows them without hesitation.
20:11 After all, they are police officers.
20:13 But instead of taking him to the police station,
20:16 they take him to a Brooklyn garage on Nostrand Avenue where Centora is waiting for him.
20:22 The crook takes out his gun and kills Greenwald.
20:28 Under the threat of his gun, he forces the garage owner to dig a grave in the ground.
20:37 The evidence that the inspectors Louis Eppolito and Stephen Karakapa helped the mafia to commit a murder
20:43 disappears under the dust.
20:46 The murderers take their money and go back to work as if nothing had happened.
20:56 But Burt Kaplan has another contact in the mafia who offers to pay the services of the two police officers.
21:06 The business is about to become very fruitful.
21:09 In 1986, the police officers Louis Eppolito and Stephen Karakapa crossed the blue line of the New York police.
21:23 They used their badge to attract a man to a murder of the mafia.
21:29 They acted in command service for the account of the crook Burt Kaplan.
21:35 Kaplan thinks that the two police officers can be useful to a man with whom he deals.
21:39 The second of the Lucchese family, Anthony Gaspipe Casso.
21:43 He was a ruthless killer who didn't necessarily need proof of your betrayal to kill you.
21:53 At first, Casso didn't really want to mix police officers with his business.
22:04 But something will change his mind.
22:06 September 12, 1986.
22:12 Casso is in his car.
22:14 He eats an ice cream while waiting for one of his associates.
22:17 A car approaches and a man opens fire.
22:22 Casso is hit, but the injuries are superficial.
22:29 He manages to hide in a Chinese restaurant not far from there.
22:34 Casso prepares his revenge.
22:35 And Burt Kaplan offers him to hire his two corrupt police officers.
22:39 Kaplan was able to convince Casso that they had already worked for him and that he could trust them.
22:45 With Kaplan as an intermediary, Casso sends his instructions and asks two police officers to investigate.
22:51 The attempted murder against Casso took place in the 63rd district, where Eppolito worked.
22:59 So it was normal for him to have access to the reports that were filed.
23:03 A few days later, Kaplan gives Casso an envelope.
23:09 Inside are the names, photos and police reports on the shooting.
23:15 One of the suspects is a mafia aspirant, Jimmy Heidel.
23:20 Kaplan then proposed that the police officers give Heidel to Casso.
23:27 And Casso agreed.
23:29 It was for him the ideal way to reach Jimmy, who would have no choice but to obey and follow the police.
23:36 October 18, 1986, Staten Island.
23:41 Eppolito and Caracappa watch the house where Jimmy and his mother live.
23:48 When a man leaves the house and gets into Jimmy's car, he stops him on the side of the road and questions him.
23:56 It's Jimmy's brother, Frankie.
23:58 According to what Frankie told them, they determined that Jimmy had to meet individuals around Diker Park in Brooklyn.
24:06 There, Frankie's mother and Jimmy left the house.
24:10 She watched them well before they left for Diker Park.
24:14 Eppolito and Caracappa find Jimmy a little later in the day.
24:19 They have no trouble convincing him to follow them nicely.
24:24 It is possible that Jimmy recognized Louis. He was very visible back in Brooklyn at the time.
24:28 He thought he was going to arrest him.
24:31 He didn't suspect that they were going to take him to a garage on Nostrand Avenue.
24:36 They get him out of the car, tie his arms and legs and throw him in the trunk.
24:43 Then they give the keys to Frank Santora.
24:47 The next evening, Santora takes the car to the parking lot of a large toy store.
24:53 Eppolito and Caracappa arrive shortly after and watch Santora from afar, who finds Kaplan and Casso to give them the keys to the car.
25:01 Casso takes his prisoner to the basement of a neighboring house.
25:07 He tortured him for hours to get him to remember all those who were involved in the attempted murder on Casso.
25:15 He beat him mercilessly.
25:21 He shot him.
25:22 He tortured him until he was able to take revenge.
25:26 Heidel's body was never found.
25:31 Casso is impressed by the work of Caracappa and Eppolito.
25:35 The two men take $30,000 for their efforts.
25:40 Casso asks for their help again to find a new suspect in the police file.
25:45 His name is Nicky Guido.
25:50 Nicky Guido.
25:51 November 11, 1986.
25:55 Caracappa consults the New York police database.
25:59 Caracappa connected to the computer using his tax record number.
26:04 Each policeman has one, and he consulted the files.
26:07 He types the name of Nicola Guido.
26:10 They didn't have an exact date of birth, they just had a rank of order.
26:16 He was maybe 35 or 36 years old.
26:20 Caracappa knew that his research would not arouse suspicion.
26:24 They ran research on the truants.
26:27 One of the risks of being a truant is that people want to kill you.
26:30 Nothing abnormal about being asked for your name and that you die shortly after.
26:34 Caracappa sends the information to Caplan and Casso.
26:38 The police propose to extend their research to be sure not to make a mistake.
26:43 Provided, of course, that this service is paid.
26:47 Casso refuses.
26:49 He knows Guido's name and address.
26:52 He needs all of this.
26:54 These men will take care of the rest.
26:57 December 25, 1986. Brooklyn.
27:04 Nicky Guido is in front of his house.
27:08 He shows his new car to his uncle.
27:11 He doesn't pay attention to the car passing in the street.
27:15 He wakes up at the last moment and sees the barrel of a revolver.
27:19 He throws himself on his uncle, thus protecting him from the bullet rain.
27:24 Nicky Guido is dead.
27:28 But this is not the good Nicky Guido.
27:32 The man with a bullet wound on the front seat of his new car is an honest worker.
27:37 A man who dreamed of becoming a firefighter.
27:42 The mafia meets too late that the man they are looking for has an address miles away,
27:46 in the north of New York State.
27:48 They killed a young man under all circumstances.
27:51 And Polito would have told them, "You idiot, if you had paid us, you would have had the right guy."
27:56 Caplan is furious.
27:58 He still holds to the rule of the mafia that forbids killing civilians.
28:02 But this fatal mistake teaches Caplan and Casso a lesson.
28:09 If two police officers can prevent another massacre from happening, it's worth putting a price on it.
28:13 Casso ranks the police officers on the mafia's pay list for $4,000 a month.
28:19 The New York Police Inspectorate, Louis and Polito, and Stephen Caracappa are real criminals on the mafia's payroll.
28:35 In 1986, the New York Police Inspectorate, Louis and Polito, and Stephen Caracappa, lead a dangerous double life.
28:42 Both are married men.
28:46 They have lovers.
28:48 And Polito is a father to these three children.
28:52 My father didn't miss me when we were children.
28:57 He helped me learn to read, to ride a bike.
29:02 He was there every year for the father-daughter ball.
29:05 But in their work, the two men get more and more involved in their actions for the mafia.
29:10 In the mid-80s, Stephen Caracappa continues to set up the organized crime fight brigade.
29:20 As an inspector in this unit, he has access to the investigations on the New York police and the FBI.
29:29 He must have found a gold mine. He had access to all the information about the mafia.
29:34 This gave him carte blanche to look at any plate of registration, photo, or file.
29:43 He could look at everything.
29:54 Polito and Caracappa pass on secret information from the police to their mafia employees.
29:59 During the next three years, their dirty work obstructs the investigations on organized crime in the city.
30:05 For every microphone placed in a truck in the Loucaises, or a restaurant in the Genoveses in New Jersey,
30:14 the informants were always aware.
30:16 Every informant who had agreed to cooperate was killed.
30:23 Or was the subject of a murder attempt.
30:25 You can't even imagine how many investigations were compromised, how many people disappeared.
30:30 It's impossible to tell.
30:32 The other police officers know that there is a leak, but they can't accuse Polito or Caracappa.
30:38 The inspectors are like all the other investigators. They relied on evidence.
30:43 But no one had any evidence.
30:47 In 1989, after 20 years of service, Louis and Polito retired from the police force.
30:52 But not from his small job.
30:54 Anthony Casso still has a lot to settle with those who tried to kill him three years earlier.
31:02 The last survivor is a truant named Eddie Lino.
31:08 This time, Casso decides that these police officers will do the work themselves.
31:15 He gives away $75,000 so that Polito and Caracappa can eliminate Lino.
31:20 November 6, 1990, at dusk.
31:27 The traffic lights shine on the fast lane of New York.
31:30 But the service lane is almost deserted.
31:33 Only two cars are driving towards the Ocean Parkway exit.
31:37 The traffic light appears in the second car.
31:44 The police officers get out, show their ID, Lino goes down his window, and Polito takes care of the conversation.
31:52 And Polito says to him, "What's that on the floor?"
31:57 And when Lino looks over, Steve Caracappa empties his magazine on him.
32:11 Lino's murder has remained unsolved.
32:14 In 1992, Steve Caracappa also retired, like Louis and Polito.
32:22 But something in Louis pushes him to want to be the center of attention.
32:26 He then writes a book that tells his childhood in a mafia family and his work in New York police.
32:32 He calls it "Mafia Cop, the story of an honest cop whose family was the mafia".
32:39 The stupidest thing that I've ever done was not to mouth shit.
32:43 I should have stayed in the game.
32:45 When you're involved in criminal activities, you stay quiet and you don't attract attention.
32:49 The book comes out in 1992.
32:53 Inside is a picture of Louis and his former partner, Steven Caracappa.
32:58 Legend has it that they were both New York police officers.
33:02 Caracappa has gone mad, from what we've been told.
33:06 When the book came out, he saw pictures of him and Polito.
33:10 And of course, when the book came out, they had done murders.
33:15 But Louis never had enough.
33:19 He decides to go on talk shows to promote his book.
33:23 He'll go on the "Sally Jesse Raphael Show".
33:27 In Staten Island, Jimmy Idol's mother disappeared a few years earlier and in front of the television.
33:35 The minute she saw him, she knew it was him who was there the day Jimmy disappeared.
33:39 She went to buy the book and inside there was a picture of Caracappa and Polito in their office.
33:45 There she said, "Here's the second guy".
33:48 She didn't know who to talk to.
33:51 The murder of her son was an unsolved case.
33:55 She waited.
33:57 Louis refuses to let his quarter of an hour of glory pass.
34:03 He looks for the spotlight by playing small roles in films like "Les Affranchis" or "Coup de feu sur Broadway".
34:09 And Polito had an insatiable need to be under the spotlight.
34:14 He wanted to be an actor, a producer, he wanted to be a star.
34:19 In 1994, he takes his whole family to live in Las Vegas.
34:24 He settles in a private residence.
34:29 A year later, Steven Caracappa buys a house right in front of the Polito family's house.
34:34 In New York, the events that take place allow investigators to make major advances.
34:42 In 1993, the former boss of the mafia of the two police officers, Anthony "Gas" Pipe Casso, is tricked by the FBI.
34:56 The accusations against him go from conspiracy to murder.
35:00 To save his skin, he sells his former associates of the mafia, including Burt Kaplan, and Polito and Caracappa.
35:08 He even tells his story in the media.
35:11 There were two detectives who worked in a large unit of New York police.
35:16 Louis and Polito and Steve Caracappa.
35:19 Louis is tall and skinny, Steve is short and thin.
35:24 But Casso's stories change constantly and he lies several times.
35:28 His testimony is worthless.
35:32 The authorities don't have enough evidence to file a case against the two police officers.
35:38 Another advance happens in 1996, when the former associate of Casso, Burt Kaplan, is arrested for drug trafficking.
35:47 But Kaplan is old school and refuses to give Polito, Caracappa or any other of his contacts.
35:53 It seems that the police of the mafia will not pay for their murder.
35:57 At least until a brilliant young inspector gathers the pieces of the puzzle.
36:11 In 2003, it's been more than 10 years since the traitor Eddie Lino was shot in his car in a deserted place in New York.
36:19 The two killers, two former New York police inspectors, Louis and Polito and Steve Caracappa, try to lead a peaceful life in Las Vegas.
36:31 Anthony Casso, the second of the Lucchese family, accused the two men, as well as the gangster Burt Kaplan, of having committed a murder.
36:41 But Casso is not a reliable witness and Kaplan refused to give the two police officers.
36:47 The case is abandoned. At least until the authorities come up with new evidence.
36:55 In September, Inspector Tommy Dades investigates the murder of Frankie Heidel, Jimmy's brother.
37:07 On the phone, the mother of the two boys is concerned.
37:10 She was a little hesitant to talk to me. So I told her to just tell me what happened.
37:18 She tells Dades that she recognized Polito on television and that he was there the day Jimmy disappeared.
37:25 That was the first time we were able to make the link between Caracappa and Polito and the murder of Jimmy Heidel.
37:33 Dades is looking for anything he can find on the former police officers and is soon part of a shock team set up to clean up the files.
37:40 For nine months, Vekion, Pansy and I, we just read the files, clean them up, go through all the documents to find everything we needed.
37:51 The investigation allows us to find Caracappa's trace on the computer where he had done a search on Nicky Guido.
37:59 The search was just a month before Guido's murder.
38:03 The investigators now have a second murder that seems to be linked to the two police officers.
38:08 On a hunch, Dades contacts Las Vegas' Stoops to verify the suspects.
38:14 The Stoops' agent went there and he saw a car. It was a car of a known dealer in the police department.
38:21 The information confirms that the two former police officers have a rare frequency.
38:28 But this doesn't make the investigation in New York any better.
38:31 What they really need to build a concrete case is the testimony of Bert Kaplan.
38:38 In May 2004, the investigator at the office of the prosecutor Joe Pansy visits Kaplan in prison.
38:47 He dug his heels into his position and was determined to purge his sin. He was heading towards the door and I knew I was losing him.
38:56 Pansy made one last effort to get Kaplan to stay in the room.
39:00 I said to him, raising my voice, "Mr. Kaplan, look me in the eye and tell me that it has nothing to do with the murder of Nicky Guido, this poor innocent young man."
39:10 He stopped and his face turned red. He came back and sat down.
39:15 The efforts finally paid off. Kaplan is still furious that the bad Nicky Guido had been murdered.
39:22 He turns his jacket around. In the following months, he tells everything.
39:26 He links the two police officers to numerous murders, including those of Israel Greenwald, Jimmy Heidel, Nicky Guido and Eddie Dino.
39:37 Kaplan also confirms that the police officers provided confidential information from the police to the mafia.
39:44 He was the greatest of the bigwigs. He could put everyone in prison.
39:51 Many have never succeeded as an informant, but he did. He was the best.
39:55 The investigators have enough evidence to drag the police officers before the New York State Tribunal.
40:00 But that's where the federal government comes in.
40:04 The accusation wants to bring down Caracappa and Eppolito for organized criminal activity, but there is a prescription.
40:16 To get their case going, the federal government must prove that the former police officers are still part of the same criminal organization in Las Vegas as those they depended on in New York.
40:25 The investigators equip one of their informants with a microphone and send him to meet Eppolito and Caracappa.
40:32 The informant recruits the two men to make a drug dealer become an imaginary client in Hollywood.
40:37 What happened in Las Vegas had absolutely nothing to do with Brooklyn.
40:43 It was a small, illicit association in Las Vegas. It was a deal to make a movie. It had nothing to do with organized crime.
40:49 But for the federal government, that's more than enough.
40:52 In March 2005, they arrest the two men in Las Vegas and extradite them to New York for their trial.
40:59 While he is released under caution, Stephen Caracappa goes on television for 60 minutes to plead his case.
41:08 I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't put my life in jeopardy, my family, dishonor my name, dishonor the city, throw it away, throw away all the life I've worked for.
41:21 During the preliminary hearings, the judge warns that the link between the crimes in New York and Las Vegas is very weak.
41:31 But he still allows the trial.
41:37 March 13, 2006, trial begins.
41:39 In front of the court, Louis Eppolito claims his innocence.
41:45 I was very much decorated in the police. I've worked my whole life and I just wanted to say that I'm not the person they're taking me.
41:53 They face many charges, including 10 murders, obstruction of justice, sales of narcotics and money laundering.
42:01 The key witness is Burt Kaplan.
42:06 He just told a cold, emotionless story of the murders he was in with these two fellas.
42:15 It was shocking to see him sit there, cold and totally under control.
42:22 I think it became clear to everyone that he was telling the truth and that we were going to prove it.
42:28 Not only with his testimony, but with lots and lots of corroborating evidence.
42:36 A small army of witnesses corroborates Kaplan's testimony.
42:40 The accusation calls for the witness to be the owner of the garage that had buried Israel Greenwald and also exposes the remains of the body that were unearthed.
42:49 On April 6, 2006, after only 10 hours of deliberation, the jury gives its verdict.
43:00 Louis Eppolito and Stephen Karakapa are found guilty of all the charges.
43:05 But the judge is not convinced.
43:08 For him, the accusation did not prove the link between the arrest of Las Vegas and the New York mafia.
43:14 He said, "These are the worst criminals I've ever had in my court.
43:18 They should never get out of it free, but I will not sentence them to a dubious charge."
43:23 The judge rejects the case.
43:26 But the Federal Court of Appeal does not agree.
43:30 The verdict is reestablished.
43:32 The verdict has been confirmed in appeal.
43:35 I think it was because of the gravity of the criminal activities, even if the legal framework was a little dubious.
43:40 Louis Eppolito and Stephen Karakapa are sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
43:48 The two men have exhausted their ability to appeal.
43:53 But Louis's daughter, Andrea, is still fighting to get her father to apologize.
43:58 She also claims that she has evidence that accuses her father and his partner.
44:03 I will tear this case apart.
44:06 And all those who want to see it can go to the websites created to defend my father.
44:12 I will print and publish all the documents that prove to you that my father did not do this.
44:21 The investigators in charge of the case remain convinced that Louis Eppolito and Stephen Karakapa are the worst police officers to ever wear the badge of the New York police.
44:31 Louis Eppolito and Stephen Karakapa will be known forever as mafia cops, killers working for the Beggar's account.
44:39 Nothing else.
44:41 We will remember them as the two worst representatives of the New York police that ever existed.
44:49 Killers ready to sell their souls for money.
44:52 [Gunshots]
44:54 [Silence]
45:02 [French]
45:05 or cut.