Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa: The NYPD Detectives Who Became Lucchese Family Hitmen
The most dangerous criminals in New York City during the late 1980s and early 1990s were not mob bosses or street-level enforcers. They were two decorated NYPD detectives who carried gold shields, drew government salaries, and used their positions inside law enforcement to commit murder on behalf of the Lucchese crime family. Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa represent the most shocking case of law enforcement corruption in modern American history. They murdered at least eight people, leaked confidential informant identities to the mob, and even appeared in Goodfellas as extras while simultaneously working as paid assassins.
How Two Detectives Became Mob Assassins
Louis Eppolito grew up surrounded by organized crime. His father Ralph was a member of the Gambino crime family, and his uncle James was a Gambino soldier. Despite this background, Eppolito joined the NYPD and rose to become one of the most decorated detectives in the department’s history. He even authored a memoir titled Mafia Cop, discussing growing up in a mob family while serving as a police officer. What no one knew was that Eppolito had never truly left that world behind.
Stephen Caracappa was Eppolito’s opposite in temperament — quiet, meticulous, and methodical. He worked in the NYPD’s Organized Crime Homicide Unit, which gave him access to the identities of confidential informants, details of ongoing investigations, and intelligence about witness protection placements. Together, the two detectives began working for Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, the underboss of the Lucchese family, in the mid-1980s. Casso paid them $4,000 per month plus bonuses for individual jobs, receiving a pipeline of intelligence directly from inside the NYPD.
Eight Murders and a Trail of Corruption
The detectives’ work for Casso went far beyond leaking information. They participated directly in kidnappings and murders. In one of their most brazen operations, Eppolito and Caracappa used their police credentials to pull over James Hydell on a Brooklyn street in 1986. Hydell believed he was being stopped by legitimate police officers. Instead, the detectives forced him into a car and delivered him to Casso, who tortured Hydell for hours before killing him. His body was never recovered.
They also provided Casso with the identities of mob associates who were secretly cooperating with federal investigators. At least three informants were murdered after the detectives identified them to the Lucchese family. Bruno Facciola was found with a canary stuffed in his mouth, the traditional Mafia symbol for a snitch. In another case, Caracappa shot Gambino associate Eddie Lino to death during a staged traffic stop on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn. These killings were carried out with the systematic precision of trained law enforcement officers who understood exactly how murder investigations worked.
The Goodfellas Connection
In a detail that seems too cinematic to be real, both Eppolito and Caracappa appeared as extras in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 film Goodfellas. Eppolito played a mob-connected character in a restaurant scene, leveraging his real-life knowledge of organized crime. He was simultaneously working as a paid killer for the Lucchese family while appearing on screen in a movie about the very world he inhabited. Eppolito’s acting ambitions extended beyond Goodfellas — he appeared in several other films and TV shows, always playing tough guys or mob characters.
Justice Delayed
The Mafia Cops evaded justice for over a decade. Both retired from the NYPD with full pensions. Eppolito moved to Las Vegas to pursue acting. Their identities as mob hitmen were first revealed by Casso himself, who began cooperating with prosecutors in the early 1990s. However, Casso’s credibility was destroyed when he was caught breaking the terms of his cooperation agreement.
The case was resurrected through the testimony of Burton Kaplan, the intermediary between Casso and the detectives. In 2005, Eppolito and Caracappa were arrested at an Italian restaurant in Las Vegas. Their 2006 trial produced devastating testimony. Both were convicted on all counts of racketeering, murder, and conspiracy, each receiving life sentences without parole. The case exposed how two active-duty police officers moonlighted as Mafia hitmen for nearly a decade, betraying their oaths, their colleagues, and the people they were sworn to protect.
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