{"id":356,"date":"2006-10-19T01:47:33","date_gmt":"2006-10-19T01:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.israelgreenwald.com\/?p=356"},"modified":"2015-03-13T01:47:46","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T01:47:46","slug":"dispute-over-super-bowl-helps-free-drug-dealers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/israelgreenwald.com\/?p=356","title":{"rendered":"Dispute Over Super Bowl Helps Free Drug Dealers"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nby Jerry Capeci<\/span><\/span><\/strong>
\nOct 19,2006<\/p>\n

After serving nine years of a staggering 27-year rap for marijuana trafficking, mob associate Burton Kaplan got out of prison three weeks ago, a payoff for his devastating trial testimony against the Mafia Cops, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa.<\/p>\n

The aging gangster isn\u2019t the only one enjoying a happy ending to the tangled case. Last week, Thomas Galpine, the right-hand man in Kaplan\u2019s lucrative drug ring, was also released in return for taking the stand against the ex-detectives, who were found guilty of eight murders and many other crimes.<\/p>\n

In a case filled with twists and turns \u2014 the judge who cut the sentences of both drug dealers, for example, also tossed out the murder convictions on technical grounds \u2014 the most unusual might be that both witnesses owe their freedom to a jailhouse row over the 2004 Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

Federal Judge Jack Weinstein, who has seen a lot in his 39 years on the federal bench in Brooklyn, noted before he trimmed Kaplan\u2019s sentence that the way the feds managed to make Kaplan eligible for the reduction was \u201crather bizarre\u201d \u2014 and the 85-year-old jurist had no idea that the Super Bowl had played a major role in the matter.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the inside story of how Super Bowl XXXVIII enabled the feds to make an end run around Rule 35, the only legal mechanism available to reduce sentences of crooks who cooperate after they are convicted.<\/p>\n

To be eligible for a successful Rule 35 motion, cooperation must begin within a year of conviction. Kaplan and Galpine were both found guilty in 1997, and the crimes they testified about happened even earlier. By the time Kaplan began singing, in 2004 (Galpine did so a year later), they were well out of range of the Rule 35 limits.That is, except for a little argument about a football game.<\/p>\n

In late 2003, Kaplan, then 70, was resigned to spending the rest of his life in prison. According to sources who have spoken with him, he got through the day playing pinochle with other oldtimers and by wagering on football games \u2014 usually for cigarettes \u2014 with other inmates at the Allenwood medium security facility in White Deer, Pa.<\/p>\n

A 50-year-old New York heroin dealer named Andrew Lawson, who transferred to Allenwood that December and joined the football club, would ultimately change all that.<\/p>\n

At first, he and Kaplan co-existed as they won and lost their bets to each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurt didn\u2019t like the guy, but he liked the action \u2014 even though he was betting cigarettes and didn\u2019t even smoke \u2014 and they got along, paying off when they lose, collecting when they win. No trouble,\u201d a Gang Land source familiar with the situation said.<\/p>\n

Trouble developed when the betting line for the Super Bowl came out. The New England Patriots were a sevenpoint favorite over the Carolina Panthers and both inmates liked the favored Patriots. Kaplan suggested they not bet the game, and he stuck to it even when Lawson said he\u2019d switch and take the underdog Panthers plus seven points, the source said.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, Lawson\u2019s secondchoice bet would have been right on the money, had there been any. On February 1, 2004, the Patriots used a tiebreaking 41-yard field goal with four seconds remaining to edge the upstart Panthers by only three points, 32\u201329.<\/p>\n

After the game, Lawson demanded to be paid, but Kaplan refused. The source put it this way: \u201cBurt\u2019s a gangster. He\u2019s betting cigarettes. He doesn\u2019t smoke. He knows the guy\u2019s lying but he tells the guy, who\u2019s huge: \u2018Let\u2019s go see [another inmate]. He was there. If he says we made the bet, I\u2019ll pay.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The second inmate supported Kaplan, which infuriated Lawson, who at about 6 feet, 6 inches towered over the 5-foot-8-inch Kaplan. He jumped Kaplan, who ended up with a scratch on his neck that he concealed for several reasons, the source said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone gets a scratch in jail, and the guards see it, it gets you sent to the hole because unless you can explain it away, the assumption is that it is a result of an altercation with another inmate, a no-no,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

Soon after, several sources said, Kaplan got even with his assailant with the help of a close friend who was on his visiting list. The friend funneled money to the jailed leader of a group of Mexican inmates who were being extorted by Lawson.<\/p>\n

The Mexican gang leader took care of the rest, getting his followers to dole out a beating to Kaplan\u2019s assailant in a snowy outdoor recreation area.<\/p>\n

Getting even is \u201cpart of what prison life is all about,\u201d Kaplan said about the incident during testimony at the Mafia Cops trial. \u201cI was involved in an assault on an inmate who assaulted me and was assaulting other people. I paid a Mexican a thousand dollars to have him assaulted,\u201d he testified, adding that Lawson was \u201churt pretty bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prison assault was chump change compared to the details Kaplan provided about murders and other racketeering crimes that he and the Mafia Cops committed. But it was the only crime within one year of its occurrence that Kaplan could give information about to satisfy the parameters of a Rule 35 motion.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors Robert Henoch and Mitra Hormozi were ready when Judge Weinstein, whose reversal of the Mafia Cops\u2019 conviction for technical reasons clearly illustrates he is a stickler for the letter of the law, interrupted their presentation to quiz them about \u201cbasic jurisdictional question\u201d raised by the one-year cut-off.<\/p>\n

Mr. Henoch noted that a former investigator for the U.S. attorney\u2019s office, William Oldham, had learned of the prison assault in 2004 and that when Kaplan was debriefed several months later, he gave the feds information that the Bureau of Prisons used to solve the case, thus satisfying the one-year limitation.<\/p>\n

In court, Judge Weinstein spelled it out as though he couldn\u2019t quite believe what he was being told.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s upon that assault in prison, rather than all of the other evidence and assistance that the defendant gave, that you predicate this motion for reduction of sentence, correct? Were it not for that, Rule 35 would have no application whatsoever, no matter what he gave in cooperation: Is that correct?\u201d the judge asked.<\/p>\n

After Mr. Henoch responded in the affirmative to both queries, Judge Weinstein told the prosecutor to \u201cpromptly\u201d inform the U.S. attorney general and Congress to correct the deficiency in the law and eliminate \u201cthis rather bizarre basis for a motion of this kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as prosecutors Henoch and Hormozi work on Judge Weinstein\u2019s Rule 35 directive, they are preparing to argue before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that the judge was wrong to throw out the Mafia Cops\u2019 murder convictions. On December 4, they will ask the appeals panel to reverse Judge Weinstein\u2019s ruling on the jury verdict, to reinstate the murder convictions, and to send the Mafia Cops to prison for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n

This column and other news of organized crime will appear later today at ganglandnews.com.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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