by Tommy Dades
Feldman’s voice was clear and firm. “I never said that to you.”
Vecchione took a calming breath, then said quietly, “Mark, you’re a liar. Ponzi heard every word of it.”
Ponzi agreed. “That was the deal, Mark. We were going to do this here, you guys would try it.”
Feldman persisted, “Well, I don’t remember it that way and I don’t have the authority to commit the U.S. Attorney to come to your building for a press conference.”
Vecchione said evenly, “You really fucked me. You’ve made me look like a fool.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
Vecchione ignored him. “I went to my boss, I told him what the deal was. And now you’re giving me this bullshit. You don’t have the authority to do what you did? I have nothing to talk to you about.” And then he slammed down the phone.
He just looked at Ponzi and shook his head.
Slightly after six P.M. on Wednesday night, March 9, 2005, Louis Eppolito and Steve Caracappa walked into the upscale restaurant Piero’s Italian Cuisine and New England Fish Market. The restaurant is on Convention Center Drive in Las Vegas, just off the famed Strip, the place where dreams live. It’s the perfect kind of Vegas place; Jerry Lewis often celebrates his birthday there and the owner was once married to actress Diahann Carroll for several weeks. As the two retired detectives entered they probably didn’t even notice the four men walking only a few feet behind them. As Eppolito and Caracappa approached the maître d’, the world collapsed on them. Five men, including FBI agents, DEA agents, and Bobby Intartaglia from Joe Ponzi’s investigative bureau, rushed out of the bar and pushed them against the oak-paneled wall, shouting that they were under arrest. As they had been taught, the agents took absolute control of the room with overwhelming force. According to witnesses, the agents drew submachine guns. When they frisked Eppolito they discovered a loaded, chambered .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun in his waistband. Within four minutes Eppolito and Caracappa were whisked out of the restaurant and taken to a Vegas jail to be held without bail.
Neither of the cops said a word as they were hustled out of the restaurant. An agent called Tommy Dades the next morning to give him the details and mentioned casually that Eppolito had fallen asleep in his cell. Tommy smiled when he heard that. That’s another piece of cop knowledge. It meant that Eppolito had no fight left in him. Dades knew from a lot of experience that when you accuse an innocent guy of an atrocious crime and put him in a cell, he doesn’t stop screaming. The only thing that slows him down is a straitjacket. But guilty men don’t react that way. When the guy is guilty, he’s relaxed; he’s busy thinking about how he’s going to get out of this jam, and he goes to sleep.
Almost simultaneously, police arrested Eppolito’s twenty-four-year-old son Anthony Eppolito at his father’s home on charges of distributing methamphetamine. When he was arrested Anthony Eppolito was in possession of about an ounce of the crystal meth, which law enforcement believed he was intending to sell.
Once Eppolito had collected rare snakes, but in his Vegas home detectives discovered an arsenal large enough to equip a rebellion. Among the 131 guns they found were five assault rifles, fifty semiautomatic pistols and submachine guns, and a gold Luger pistol. They also found supposedly incriminating e-mails between Eppolito and Caracappa as well as several NYPD files.
Joe Ponzi was surprised when he heard about one of those files in particular. It contained all the original paperwork from a murder case that he had worked, a 1986 murder that Eppolito had solved. What was Eppolito doing with that particular file, he wondered. That wasn’t a cold case; the convicted killer, Barry Gibbs, was still serving his twenty-years-to-life sentence. Ponzi remembered the case well; Gibbs had been convicted of killing a purported prostitute named Virginia Robertson. Her body had been discovered by the Belt Parkway. There had been one witness, an exmarine with a drug problem who claimed he had seen Gibbs dispose of the body from three hundred feet away, and while Gibbs didn’t fit the witness’s description, Eppolito had arrested him because he lived near the victim and had been known to have sex and do drugs with her. That witness had picked Gibbs out of the lineup, and according to Detective Eppolito he’d said, “That’s him; I’m a hundred percent sure. I’ll never forget his face as long as I live.” And while the eyewitness was the key to the conviction, a jailhouse snitch in prison with Gibbs on Rikers Island had told Ponzi that Gibbs had admitted the crime to him. Apparently that confession included some details that hadn’t been reported in the newspaper. At the time Ponzi had believed the snitch’s story had the ring of truth to it. This witness had also testified at Gibbs’s trial, although the jury claimed it had dismissed his story. So while Gibbs had screamed pretty loudly that he was innocent, eventually he was sentenced to nineteen years in prison.
So why was Louie holding that file? Ponzi was curious, but he’d spent enough time trying to figure out the motives for the crimes of Louis Eppolito.
The day after the arrests were made the U.S. Attorney issued a press release announcing the indictment. “The indictment alleges that beginning in the early 1980s, the defendants, while serving as New York City Police Department detectives also secretly worked as associates for organized crime…” Roz Mauskopf acknowledged the assistance of the NYPD and investigators from Hynes’s office at the bottom of a long list. Hynes was then quoted as crediting “Mike Vecchione, Chief of the Rackets Division, [who] led an outstanding team, and I want to especially praise retired NYPD Detective Thomas Dades and Investigator William Oldham of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for their tireless efforts in reopening this dormant investigation, along with Detective Robert Intartaglia and retired NYPD detective Doug Le Vien for their work in bringing this case to where we are today…”
That same morning Patty Lanigan drove out to Sheepshead Bay to pick up the bill of sale from Peter Franzone. The arrest of Eppolito and Caracappa the night before was all over the news. He wondered if Franzone knew about it. The moment he saw the guy he knew the answer. “He was white,” Lanigan remembers, “just pale white. And even more nervous than he’d been the day before.”
As Franzone handed him the receipt Lanigan explained, “I’m going to tell you something. This is nothing personal. I’m an investigator for the DA’s office, but the gentleman who was with me yesterday is an FBI agent. You know what happens when you lie to an FBI agent?” He decided it was time to take his shot. “Listen to me, we know what happened there. We’re giving you an out. If you don’t take it, they’re going to lock you up. You really should be truthful as far as what happened back in the day.”
Peter Franzone’s life had been turned inside-out in a day. He never saw it coming. Lanigan was bluffing; nobody except Franzone knew what had happened at that garage—but Franzone couldn’t know that. His options were basically nonexistent. Lanigan called his partner and told him they were going back out to see Franzone later that afternoon. “He’s ready,” he said.
A couple of hours later Franzone climbed into the backseat of their car. Lanigan and his partner turned and looked at him. “Look, Mr. Franzone,” Lanigan said, “you really should be honest with us. What you told us yesterday doesn’t fit.”
Franzone’s mouth quivered. He shook his head slightly. “Don’t you see,” he said, almost pleading, “I’m afraid.” He began crying. “I’m afraid.”
Lanigan glanced at his partner. Pay dirt. “Just calm down, Mr. Franzone,” the FBI agent said. “You don’t need to be afraid anymore.”
“They had a car,” he began. “I rented a garage to them in there. He paid me in cash.”
The story came out in disconnected pieces. Twenty years of walls were tumbling down. As every cop knows, when a guy finally breaks down you just let him keep talking, you let him blurt it out, you keep your mouth shut and you listen, even if none of it makes sense. You ask the questions later. “I saw the newspapers,” he continued. “I knew as soon as you came to me. I’ve been holding it in all these years…”
&n
bsp; After about twenty minutes Franzone was exhausted. The investigators explained the procedure. They wanted him to talk with Henoch. When they got out of the car that afternoon they knew they had the garage, they knew they had Franzone. But in fact, they had no idea what they really had.
In Las Vegas, Robert Henoch appeared in court to argue that Louis Eppolito and Steve Caracappa should be held without bail. The cops were represented by noted criminal lawyer David Chesnoff, who told reporters that the government had based the whole case on “organized crime figures who are trying to save their lives…The government is relying on the word of rats.” Judge Lawrence Leavitt didn’t buy that argument, saying, “Let there be no doubt. These defendants pose a danger to the community,” and rejecting their request for bail.
Amazingly, one of the people claiming credit for the arrest was Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso. Vecchione took a deep and somewhat sad breath as he read a letter that Gaspipe had written to the New York Post complaining that he was being overlooked. “Like always,” Casso had written, “the feds have downplayed my cooperation, while knowing well it would undoubtedly bring to light the government’s wrong-doings…”
Casso also admitted in this letter that he had been contacted by investigators from Hynes’s office who asked for his full cooperation, telling him his “information is right on the money and [Hynes] would like to seek his full cooperation on the matter.” The state offered him immunity, he wrote, but he couldn’t cooperate because the Feds refused to agree to that deal.
So close, Vecchione thought as he read the letter and thought about his many conversations with Casso’s attorney, D. B. Lewis. So damn close.
U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf’s press conference took place in the Eastern District offices on Friday, March 11. Joe Hynes had finally decided he wasn’t going to participate and sent Vecchione and Ponzi to represent the office. The press conference was just about ready to begin by the time they got to Mauskopf’s office. Vecchione was shocked when he walked in and saw Charlie Campisi, head of the Internal Affairs Bureau, sitting there. But he was even more surprised when the press conference began and Mauskopf immediately offered congratulations to the IAD for their efforts in the case. “It was amazing,” Vecchione recalls. “They did absolutely nothing. The first thing they did in the case was show up that day. Their only connection to the case was to tell me they couldn’t find the files we needed a year earlier.
“I heard later that the U.S. Attorney wanted Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to be there, but there wasn’t a way in hell that Kelly was going to stand on that podium and be embarrassed by having to announce this horrible case against the department. So the fall guy became Campisi. It wasn’t Campisi’s fault that he was there. To me he looked terribly uncomfortable, and Mauskopf compounded that by giving him credit that hadn’t been earned. I wanted to ask him what he was doing there, you don’t have anything to do with this case. But I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to embarrass the District Attorney or myself.
“Then she thanked the U.S. Attorney’s office in Nevada, who did very little. Then she thanked the FBI, which wasn’t even in the case for much of the first year. And finally she thanked the DEA, Charles Hynes, and me.”
Even Ponzi, who tries hard to be conciliatory, was amazed that so little credit was given to the people in Hynes’s office who made the case. One of the primary reasons he had supported Feldman’s decision to try the case was the knowledge that his office would at least receive credit for their work.
As Vecchione sat there listening to Mauskopf spin her fantasy of law enforcement cooperation he tried hard to focus on the fact that two really bad guys were finally getting the justice they’d earned. That was what really mattered, he knew that, but he hated seeing the people who had built the foundation for the case a decade after the Feds gave up on it, and helped build it into the headlines, being screwed. The credit shouldn’t matter, he knew that, but it did. When Mauskopf handed him the microphone to say a few words he could barely disguise his disgust. This was a business of trust, of ethics, and these people had looked him in the face and lied to him.
So after thanking Mauskopf, which was tough for him to do, Vecchione said that the case had been made by Detective Tommy Dades, Joe Ponzi, and Bill Oldham. Mauskopf hadn’t even acknowledged Oldham. Vecchione believed that was because Feldman and Oldham had problems with each other during the investigation.
Coincidentally, Hynes’s office had previously scheduled a press conference that same day to announce indictments in a completely different case, a case involving workman’s compensation fraud. So when the Mafia cops press conference ended reporters hustled over to Hynes’s office. And it was there that Hynes talked about the investigation and acknowledged the work done by his people.
Dades didn’t bother watching Mauskopf’s press conference or reading about it. The fact that the cops had finally been arrested—and it had been New York cops who had caught them—made him very proud. He loved the fact that they were cleaning up their own dirty laundry. And nothing that the Feds did at that point would have surprised him. Vecchione could hear the echo of Tommy’s voice floating in the air: “I’m telling you, Mike, you watch, they’re gonna fuck us.”
Peter Franzone, accompanied by his attorney, voluntarily appeared in the U.S. Attorney’s office. At first, his answers to Lanigan’s questions were vague. The line of individual garages he owned was near a train station and people who commuted to Manhattan would leave their cars there. He had met Frank Santora when he’d come around Franzone’s body shop to get his cars repaired and they’d become friends. On occasion Santora had even joined him on towing jobs. As far as Franzone knew, Santora was a salesman, although admittedly he never told him exactly what it was that he sold. Eventually Santora introduced Franzone to his cousin Louie, a detective assigned to the local precinct. Louie left his vehicle there, parked in one of those garages in the back. What kind of vehicle? Lanigan asked. Like a detective’s car, Franzone said. He’d take it out and use it, then bring it back.
That was weird, Lanigan thought. Police officers don’t make a lot of money. Why would a detective have a personal car that looked like an unmarked police car and park it in a private garage near the precinct, when he could have parked it at the precinct for free, and then make monthly payments in cash? Cops generally don’t throw money away like that. Obviously Eppolito was hiding something. Maybe more than just the car.
Franzone was a tough interview. He didn’t give up too much, but Lanigan kept after him. They met several times that week, and each time, Lanigan walked away with a little more information and a lot more questions. The guy was definitely hiding something, but what was so big that after twenty years he still was afraid to talk about it?
During one interview Franzone had mentioned that he owned some property in Pennsylvania. That was interesting. This property you got in Pennsylvania, Lanigan asked him, did Santora ever go there?
Franzone was noncommittal, wishy-washy. “I don’t know. He might’ve.”
“How can you not know? The guy went there or he didn’t go there.” Franzone said he just didn’t know. Did Louie ever go there? Did Caracappa ever go out there? Franzone didn’t know. That was an interesting thing not to know.
The fact that Franzone did not want to talk about that property intrigued the investigators. They knew that at least two bodies that Kaplan had associated with Santora—the jewelry dealer from the Treasury bonds, who had still not been identified, and Jimmy Hydell—had not been found. A field in Pennsylvania is a pretty good place if you don’t want a body to be found. Finally Lanigan took a shot. At one of these meetings he suddenly asked Franzone, “So where’s the body buried?” He didn’t know that there really was a body. He wasn’t even referring to a specific body. Just, “So where’s the body buried?”
Franzone claimed he didn’t know about a body. Any bodies.
Lanigan persisted. Every time they sat down he’d find a way to ask him, “What about
the body?” The more Franzone insisted he didn’t know what the investigators were talking about, the more the investigators began to believe there really was a body—and that it probably was buried on that land in Pennsylvania.
This was not the only lead that Lanigan and his partner were pursuing, but they kept at this one, believing there was an answer to their question. As had happened between Kaplan and Oldham, eventually Franzone decided he didn’t want to deal with Lanigan. One morning Lanigan got a call from the U.S. Attorney. The message was simple: “Franzone’s giving us a body.”
A body. After all this time they were finally going to be able to link a body to the two cops. They met in Franzone’s lawyer’s office in Manhattan, and when Lanigan got there he was informed he wasn’t welcome in the meeting.
He gritted his teeth and didn’t say a word. His FBI partner went into the meeting and heard Peter Franzone’s story. One afternoon in 1985 or 1986, Franzone wasn’t exactly certain, Louie Eppolito had driven to the shop. A few minutes later Santora and two other men walked up. Franzone hadn’t seen either of them before. One of the men was obviously an Orthodox Jew; he was wearing a yarmulke and had a beard. The other one was wearing a dark trench coat with its collar turned up to hide his face. All four of them went around back into one of the parking garages and pulled down the metal door.
Maybe a half hour later Santora and the guy wearing the trench coat emerged. Santora asked Franzone to come on in the back; he wanted to show him something. Franzone walked into the garage—and he could hardly breathe. The Orthodox Jew was dead, lying on the ground. At that moment he realized Santora wasn’t actually a salesman. “Santora told me I hadda help bury the body because I was an accessory. And then he told me if I ever go and tell anybody, he was going to kill me and my fucking family.”
