By TOM HAYS Associated Press<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The family of a diamond dealer killed by a pair of crooked New York Police Department detectives \u2014 known as the Mafia Cops for moonlighting as hit men for the mob \u2014 has won a $5 million settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the family of Israel Greenwald announced the settlement on Thursday in one of the most notorious police corruption cases in city history.<\/p>\n
The family sued the city in 2006 after Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were arrested in Las Vegas, where they had retired, and convicted of murder and other crimes.<\/p>\n
At a 2006 trial in federal court in Brooklyn, prosecutors accused the pair of being involved in the contract killings of eight people between 1986 and 1990 while on the payroll of a Luchese organized crime family underboss. While some of the victims were criminals, Greenwald was targeted in 1986 because the mob believed he was cooperating with the FBI.<\/p>\n
There was evidence that Eppolito, who played a bit part in the classic mob movie “GoodFellas,” and Caracappa kidnapped Greenwald, stopping his car and taking him to a parking garage, where he was shot in the head and buried. His body wasn’t recovered until 2005.<\/p>\n
“Losing a father at a young age is tragic,” Greenwald’s daughters, who were ages 9 and 7 at the time of his death, said in a statement on Thursday. “Losing a father in this manner, where he disappeared one day into thin air never to return, where there was no grave and no closure, is nothing short of horrific.”<\/p>\n
Eppolito, whose father was a member of the Gambino crime family, wrote an autobiography, “Mafia Cop,” about his life as a police officer growing up in a mob family.<\/p>\n
Plaintiff attorney Ben Brafman said that in 1985 before the killing rampage began, NYPD commanders had “clear, overwhelming evidence that Eppolito had fed Mafia bosses classified information.” But after a disciplinary hearing, the officer was restored to full duty, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n
A city Law Department spokesman said the deal with Greenwald’s family was “in the best interest of the city.”<\/p>\n
In 2010, the city paid $9.9 million to a man who spent 19 years behind bars after new evidence surfaced that Eppolito and Caracappa had framed him in the slaying of a prostitute.<\/p>\n
Eppolito, 67, and Caracappa, 73, are serving life behind bars. At sentencing, they insisted they were railroaded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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