JUDGE ACQUITS 2 EX-DETECTIVES IN MOB KILLINGS

A federal judge tossed out the racketeering convictions of two
retired New York City detectives yesterday -- including eight murders
for the mob -- because the statute of limitations had run out,
despite citing overwhelming evidence that the men had committed
"heinous and violent crimes."

The ruling by Judge Jack B. Weinstein entirely reversed the
conviction of the two detectives, Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen
Caracappa, who were found guilty in April of some of the most
stunning corruption charges in the city's history.

Although a jury found that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had
participated, as paid assassins, in killings for the mob, the judge
acquitted the two men on the murder counts of the racketeering
conspiracy, though not on evidentiary grounds. But the judge left
open the possibility that the prosecution could seek to retry the
defendants on a drug charge, and Mr. Eppolito, alone, on a
money-laundering count.

The ruling, in a 102-page order that touched upon Thomas More and the
sanctity of the Constitution, was the latest and most severe turn in
the 15-month case.

It shocked the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn, which
said it would appeal. And it bitterly disappointed the families of
the victims in the case, some of whom had given heart-rending
testimony at the two men's sentencing last month, where they were
given life terms.

The decision sent a surge of joy through the offices of the
defendants' new lawyers, one of whom, Joseph Bondy, called it "the
most substantial legal victory" in recent history.

It also threatened to disrupt the careers -- and the book deals -- of
some investigators in the case. And it led to the bizarre prospect
that the two detectives -- whom Judge Weinstein outright accused in
his order of being stone-cold killers -- could walk free from federal
detention in Brooklyn as early as next week.

The judge waxed eloquent in acknowledging that his decision might
seem strange to some.

"It will undoubtedly appear peculiar to many people that heinous
criminals such as the defendants, having been found guilty on
overwhelming evidence of the most despicable crimes of violence,
should go unwhipped of justice," he wrote.

"Yet our Constitution, statutes and morality require that we be ruled
by the law, not vindictiveness or the advantages of the moment."

The judge also wrote that even though there was little doubt that Mr.
Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had "kidnapped, murdered, and assisted
kidnappers and murderers," he had no choice but to let them go
because the five-year statute of limitations in conspiracy cases had run out.

His ruling was hardly the first mention of the statute of
limitations. Virtually from the outset of the case, Judge Weinstein
said he was queasy about the decision to accuse the men of an
overarching conspiracy that included the eight gangland murders, all
in Brooklyn in the 1980's and 1990's, and a much more recent -- and
less serious -- charge of selling an ounce of methamphetamine in Las
Vegas last year.

In October, the defense team seized upon the judge's qualms and moved
to quash the case before the trial, saying, in essence, that the
government had strapped the drug charge onto the murder charges "to
freshen up" the case and to avoid the statute of limitations.

Judge Weinstein denied the motion, deciding instead to go to trial
and see if the government could prove that an "ongoing criminal
enterprise" indeed stretched from the streets of Brooklyn to the
casinos and subdivisions of Las Vegas.

Judge Weinstein's ruling spiked that argument, and no matter how
pained he seemed to be in vacating the convictions, he took the
government to task. "The government's case against these defendants,"
he wrote, "stretches federal racketeering and conspiracy law to the
breaking point."

There was a certain incongruity lurking in the fact that the statute
of limitations was practically the first issue raised in pretrial
hearings by the defendants' former lawyers, Bruce Cutler and Edward
Hayes, who just this week were forced to appear in court to defend
themselves against charges of incompetence that had been filed
against them by the two detectives. Judge Weinstein threw those charges out.

Still, it was in keeping with the topsy-turvy nature of the case that
the very argument that the fired legal team had offered in their
former clients' defense was the one that eventually prevailed.

The judge's ruling provided a much more sweeping victory than the
defendants would have gotten with a finding that their lawyers were
incompetent.

In that case, they would have been retried. Now there can be no new
trial on the racketeering charges, although a higher court could
reinstate the convictions.

Reached at his office, Mr. Hayes was at first speechless -- a rarity
for a man who once sang "Danny Boy" in open court.

He said the prosecution had made a grave tactical error by not
allowing the case to be tried in state court, which has no statute of
limitations on murder, instead of using the federal racketeering
charges, which have the five-year limitation.

"But this is a Justice Department that more than any in my lifetime
has shown a mad-dog desire to control everything and to ignore the
law," he said. "And they paid the price in this case."

Mr. Cutler said it would have been difficult for a jury to acquit on
what some might see as a technicality, but he praised Judge Weinstein
for his independence.

"I take comfort in the fact that there are judges who do what they
think is right," he said.

Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the United States attorney's office
in Brooklyn, released a terse statement yesterday supporting the
jury's verdict.

"The jury in this case unanimously found Eppolito and Caracappa
guilty of racketeering and murder based on overwhelming evidence,"
the statement read.

"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."