Big cases also attract big lawyers. Both of the defendants are represented by attorneys who know how to put on a show and clearly enjoy doing it. Bruce Cutler, who came to fame with his bombastic, in-the-government's-face defense work for John Gotti, is representing Eppolito. Caracappa's case will be argued by Ed Hayes, a self-invented package of street smarts, mercurial temper, and flash tailoring. Cutler and Hayes are the sort of canny, insider lawyers who play not simply to the judge and jury but also to the press gallery.
Yet, as a result of the wads of movie and book money some of the investigators have stuffed into their pockets, Cutler and Hayes will have more to work with than they had previously anticipated. "All of a sudden these cops and prosecutors get Kaplan to talk and now they're making money off of it," Hayes gripes. "It sure seems to me like they had a real vested interest in getting him to say exactly what they want him to-so they can run off to Hollywood. Sure, cops and prosecutors sell their books. But never before the trial. These guys are potential witnesses. Now what's a jury going to think of them and their so-called objectivity?"
And that is not the only problem facing the government. In all his months of debriefing, Kaplan, Vanity Fair has learned, never disclosed that during the 1980s he had been a confidential informant (C.I.) for the FBI.
According to a retired Major Case Squad detective who worked hijacking cases, "There's no doubt that Kaplan was working [for the FBI] as an informant." Another retired organized-crime police supervisor agreed that the FBI "was using Kaplan as an informant. If they say otherwise, they're lying." And the FBI agent identified by three sources as Kaplan's handler confirmed his role: "He worked as a C.I. not just for me but also for an agent in New York." A week later, however, the FBI agent changed his story and denied that he had ever used Kaplan as an informant.
Nevertheless, Kaplan's alleged lack of candor raises disturbing questions for the prosecution about his credentials as a witness. "His [Kaplan's] failure to disclose his status as a C.I. to his current interrogators is a clear indication of his desire to keep something secret," says an indignant Hayes. "The question is what.The crux of this case will be to answer that question." The defense attorney adds, "If he lied to the government in order to keep secret criminal activity to his profit or to whomever is holding his money, then his current testimony is worthless."
No less significant, Kaplan's previously undisclosed history of cooperation with the government focuses attention on another lingering mystery:Why was the initial investigation in 1994 into the two detectives' crimes-the most stunning allegations ever made in the history of the NYPD-shut down? Why were such incendiary charges not pursued for a decade?
The answer routinely dished out by police and federal agents is that there were no witnesses: Casso had proved unreliable, and Kaplan was a hard case from the old school, a man who would never betray anyone. The law-enforcement party line on Kaplan was succinctly articulated in March by a source quoted in a Daily News report: "The tough Jew who could never be accepted as a member of the Mafia held to his own principles and honor."
However, according to what two retired New York police officials and an active federal agent have told Vanity Fair, Kaplan had a history of compromising his "principles and honor" in return for government deals. Did either the FBI or the police, agencies with direct knowledge of Kaplan's role as a government informant, truly pressure him to testify against Eppolito and Caracappa?
"I can't believe that he was offered a deal in 1998 and refused it," says Robert DeBellis, who as the former head of the FBI cargo-theft unit in West Paterson, New Jersey, knew Kaplan well. "If it was either [Kaplan] or someone else going to prison for twenty-seven years, he wouldn't have hesitated for a second."
One of the principal lawyers who defended Kaplan in his marijuana-trafficking case agrees that there was never a concerted effort to get his client's cooperation. "To my knowledge," he says, "there was never a formal deal on the table for Kaplan to roll over on the cops. It never got that far. The U.S. attorney said that they would like to sit down with him and talk. Kaplan said he wasn't interested and that was the end of it."Through his lawyers, Kaplan declined to comment.
But why did the police and FBI not actively attempt to get his testimony? Why did they, in effect, allow the case to die?
One theory being whispered in law-enforcement circles is that these agencies wanted the case to disappear. Casso, according to sources familiar with his debriefing sessions, had not merely incriminated the two city detectives but also made allegations about a corrupt FBI agent. And, police officials concede, Eppolito and Caracappa must have had "rabbis" in the department, officials who in the 1980s continued to give them promotions despite the flurry of suspicions.There were, some say, many reasons for powerful people to want the past to remain firmly past.
I want to bury my son," Betty Hydell has said, according to a report by Mob authority Jerry Capeci. "For nine years, whenever there is a body found or dug up, I always call the morgue.They have my son's dental records on file. I just want to bury my son."
The trial of the two detectives, both of whom face life sentences, is scheduled to begin this September. And perhaps, with a verdict, a mother's grief will finally be assuaged.
Howard Blum, a former reporter for the New York Times, is the author of eight bestselling books and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. His new book, American Lightning, will be published next year.
John Connolly, a former NYPD detective, is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. His book, The Sin Eater, the story of Hollywood 's P.I. to the stars, Anthony Pelicano, will be published by Atria early next year.
Not much more than a year after the indictments, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa went on trial in a Brooklyn courtroom.The trial stretched on for nearly four weeks, and the scene was reminiscent of the big-time New York mob trials of the late eighties and early nineties when John Gotti strutted his way into notoriety: a gaggle of attentive journalists, photographers, and television crews crowding the courthouse steps, and a parade of morally flawed yet pragmatically born-again government witnesses taking the stand.
But it was the "Old Man" who stole the show-and sealed the case for the prosecution. During his four days on the stand, Burton Kaplan was a perfect witness: a model of careful, well-reasoned recollection. In his soft, lulling voice he told his tale with authority and detail. The courtroom was hushed, riveted, as he described, for example, how Eppolito came to visit him when he was in the hospital for eye surgery in 1990 and the detective rather matter-of-factly detailed the Lino murder. Caracappa was the shooter, the Old Man recalled Eppolito's confessing to him, because "Steve's a much better shot."
Eddie Hayes and Bruce Cutler, the tag team of celebrity lawyers who took on the burden of defending the two dirty cops, seemed overwhelmed by the government's case. They shouted, hurled innuendos against the witnesses, and, raging and furious, pontificated with bombastic indignation in their well-cut suits to the jury. But they never refuted the facts, or seemed really to try. In the end, after only a cursory deliberation, the jury convicted the two former detectives of all the charges.