Jailed NYPD cop who committed murders for Lucchese family dead at 71
Mafia cop Louis Eppolito — who along with his partner Stephen Caracappa helped whack several men for the Lucchese crime family — died on Sunday while serving a life sentence in federal prison, law-enforcement sources told the Post. He was 71.
The ex-NYPD detective was serving a life sentence at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson for the eight contract killings that he and Caracappa helped carry out starting in the 1980s.
“Louis died in a hospital with dignity and caring people around him,” his wife, Frances Ann Eppolito, told The Post.
His daughter, Andrea Eppolito-Fisher, mourned her father’s death in a Facebook post Sunday.
“My father, Louis John Eppolito, died peacefully in his sleep at 9:03 pm,” she wrote in the message.
“He died like he lived, on his own terms, as a fighter. And I will miss him and love him forever,” she added.
His cause of death was not immediately known. A source said he’d been struggling with health issues for years.
Eppolito and Caracappa were arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration agents in 2005 and convicted for their involvement in the eight murders in 2006.
In a deal struck with Lucchese underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, the two NYPD detectives agreed to pass intelligence reports about mob rats to the crime family in exchange for a monthly salary.
In two of the slayings they did for the mafia family, Eppolito and Caracappa used NYPD intelligence to track down Lucchese rivals and deliver them to mob executioners.
One of the victims, Israeli diamond dealer Israel Greenwald, was pulled over by the dirty detectives after they tracked his license plate using an NYPD database.
They drove him to a warehouse on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, where Caracappa and another mafia hood killed him, while Eppolito acted as a lookout, it was revealed at their trial.
Greenwald’s remains were buried underneath the warehouse, until they were excavated in 2005.
In another one of the contract-hits, Caracappa and Eppolito shoved a canary into the mouth of a Lucchese associate suspected of informing on the mob outfit.
Caracappa died at a medical detention facility in Butner, North Carolina, in 2017. He was 75.
https://nypost.com/2019/11/04/mafia-cop-louis-eppolito-dies-in-prison-while-serving-life-for-mob-hits/
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