By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
Published: July 1, 2006
The wife and daughter of one murder victim called it a shock. Lawyers for the men who had been convicted called it sound legal reasoning, a vindication of their trial strategy, and said that freedom on bail — not life in prison — might be next. Prosecutors, carefully avoiding hints of disappointment, promised to appeal.
After months of twists and turns in a federal case that ended in guilty verdicts for two former city police detectives, including convictions in eight murders for the mob a generation ago, Judge Jack B. Weinstein’s decision yesterday to toss out the convictions on a statute-of-limitations ruling stunned practically everyone involved, although the defendants’ lawyers were calmly making “I-told-you-so” statements.
While reaction was swift and predictable — an abyss between victims’ families and their lawyers on one side, and defendants and their representatives on the other — there was general agreement that Judge Weinstein had made a hard decision on principle, according to law, and some called it courageous.
The judge acknowledged that the evidence at trial had overwhelmingly established that Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa had committed killings for the mob, kidnappings and other “heinous and violent crimes.” He noted, though, that a five-year federal statute of limitations had lapsed, compelling him to set aside the jury’s verdict in his courtroom on April 6.
“It was really a very courageous decision,” said Joseph A. Bondy, Mr. Eppolito’s latest lawyer. “We’re relieved, obviously. Mr. Eppolito and his family are relieved beyond words.” Mr. Bondy — who succeeded Bruce Cutler, the trial lawyer, after Mr. Eppolito accused him of incompetent representation (a charge not upheld in a post-trial hearing) — said he would seek bail for his client next week.
Mr. Cutler, sounding a bit bruised by his former client’s accusation, calling it a “distasteful calumny,” said he had mixed feelings about the new turn. But instead of talking about Mr. Eppolito, he focused on his trial defense, which cited the statute of limitations as a flaw in the prosecution’s case. He said he was gratified that the judge — a jurist of “courage and independence” — had agreed.
As for losing the trial, Mr. Cutler said the gravity of the accusations — cold-blooded murders for hire, kidnapping and other crimes — had made it “hard for the jury to say not guilty” on a fine point of law.
Edward Hayes, who represented Mr. Caracappa during the trial, also praised Judge Weinstein and called his ruling “the second major rejection for the Justice Department in two days,” apparently referring to the United States Supreme Court’s repudiation on Thursday of the Bush administration’s plan to place Guantánamo Bay detainees on trial before military commissions.
Mr. Hayes, who was also accused of incompetent defense by his client in a failed bid for a new trial, said he had not talked to Mr. Caracappa about the latest ruling. Asked if he would ever represent Mr. Caracappa again, he said: “No. I defended him once. I showed him what kind of man I was, and he showed what kind of man he is. I’m not bitter. It’s a business.”
Judge Weinstein’s ruling was a stunning blow to prosecutors, who had presented evidence on violent crimes as part of a larger racketeering conspiracy. The judge held that the conspiracy begun in New York in the 1980’s had ended when the defendants retired to Las Vegas and were no longer in contact with the Luchese crime family, which had hired them.
Prosecutors with the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn had argued that the murders were part of a continuing conspiracy that lasted through a 2005 drug deal with a federal informant and that the statute of limitations thus did not apply. Speaking for the office, Robert Nardoza issued a short statement.
“The jury in this case unanimously found Eppolito and Caracappa guilty of racketeering and murder based on overwhelming evidence,” it said. “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.”
The ruling was wrenching news to the slain men’s families, some of whose members had made impassioned statements at the trial. Michal Weinstein, 30, the daughter of Israel Greenwald, a diamond dealer killed in 1986 and whose remains were discovered under the floor of a Brooklyn garage in 2005, said her mother had called her with news of the decision.
“We want to see that whoever is responsible — well, we know who’s responsible — for our father’s murder is punished, in accordance with the law,” Ms. Weinstein said in a phone interview. “It’s taken the breath out of everybody. It’s just shocking. I’m still in shock, honestly.”
Her mother, Leah Greenwald, 52, said that while shocked by the ruling, she respected it. “We, my daughters and I, do not feel betrayed, but we are shocked and we still believe that ultimately the law will work,” she said, her voice calm but with a hint of a quaver. She became more emotional as she spoke of 19 years of not knowing her husband’s fate.
At one point in the early 1990’s, she said, the family rented an apartment a block away from the Nostrand Avenue garage, near Avenue I, where her husband’s remains were found. “I lived there for two years, I parked my car right across the street,” she said bitterly. “We were looking for him, and now that we know, it is simply unbelievable that he was so close.”
The Greenwalds’ lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, called Judge Weinstein “wise and careful” and noted that, while disappointed in his decision, “I respect his ruling.” The family, he said, would “continue to pursue justice for the murder of their father/husband in a civil forum and in any future criminal proceedings at either the state or federal level.”
Gerald L. Shargel, a lawyer who has defended mobsters, including John J. Gotti, the late don of the Gambino crime family, said the prosecution “had to have known that it was a reach” to use the racketeering conspiracy charge “because the statute of limitations really was pushing the envelope.” Mr. Shargel had no role in the trial of the turncoat detectives.
If the prosecution’s appeal is denied, new trials on lesser drug and money-laundering charges could follow. Mr. Shargel said that New York State had no statute of limitations on murder, and that the case might have been — or still could be — prosecuted by state authorities. “Jurisdiction had everything to do with this case,” he said.
Anthony Ramirez contributed reporting for this article..
