Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito

[1] In 2005, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York indicted Caracappa and Eppolito on charges of racketeering conspiracy for a pattern of murders, kidnappings, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, money laundering, and narcotics dealing with mobsters and mob associates, spanning from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s.

[2][3][4][5][6] Stephen Caracappa (November 12, 1942 – April 8, 2017) had worked in the Organized Crime Homicide Unit of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) since the late 1970s before he eventually retired on a disability pension in 1992, living for a time in Great Kills, Staten Island.

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 Mafia and having to fight for his reputation as a result of the Rosario Gambino case, which he cited as a reason for his leaving the NYPD.

[5] He moved to Las Vegas around 1994 and sold automobiles at an Infiniti dealership, where he would entertain fellow salesmen with crime scene photos from his time on the force.

According to Lucchese family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso when trying to enroll in Witness Protection in 1994, he and his boss Vittorio "Vic" Amuso had paid Eppolito and Caracappa $375,000 in bribes – and payments for murder contracts – beginning in 1985.

Facciolo's murder is famous for the stuffed canary federal agents found in his mouth at the crime scene, considered to be a message to other informants.

At least partially in retaliation for the 1985 murder of Castellano, arranged by John Gotti, Casso ordered Caracappa and Eppolito to kill Gambino capo Edward "Eddie" Lino.

After wholesale indictments came down for almost every crime family in New York in the mid-1990s, Caracappa and Eppolito retired to Las Vegas, where Casso later confirmed that both were still involved in mob business.

The "Mafia Cops" were contacted in 1993 by Frank Lastorino to murder the new head of the Gambino family, John "Junior" Gotti, whose father was imprisoned for life in 1992.

Kaplan, a businessman and career criminal who had been the link between Casso and the two detectives, was the chief accuser, giving two days of riveting testimony at trial.

[8] New York City paid $18.4 million to settle seven lawsuits brought by families of the victims of Caracappa and Eppolito.