NEW YORK CITY JUDGE THROWS OUT MAFIA COPS CONSPIRACY CONVICTION

They did the crimes but might not do the time.

In a stunning development Friday, a federal judge threw out key
racketeering conspiracy convictions against "Mafia Cops" Louis
Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa -- convictions that included their
involvement in eight gangland killings from 1986 to 1991 -- because
of a conflict with the federal five-year statute of limitations.

U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein, in a 77-page ruling,
said the trial "overwhelmingly established" the guilt of Eppolito,
57, and Caracappa, 64, in the slayings and other crimes, but wrote
that the legal issue compelled him to acquit them.

"As a result of spillover prejudice resulting from the trial of that
charge [racketeering conspiracy] with other crimes charged in the
indictment, defendants are entitled to a new trial on the remaining
charges," Weinstein said.

Weinstein ordered a new trial for both men on charges of drug dealing
and, in Eppolito's case, money laundering. The retrial would involve
charges that Eppolito and Caracappa were involved in a small
methamphetamine transaction in Nevada, where they both lived after
retiring from the Police Department.

"We intend to pursue an appeal," said Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for
U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf.

Should the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverse Weinstein's
decision, the provisional sentences of life imprisonment that he had
given Eppolito and Caracappa would be reinstated.

Bail applications for the jailed defendants, who were convicted April
6, are expected to be filed shortly.

Lawyers reacted with astonishment as news of the ruling ricocheted
around the city's legal community.

"We won the case! We won the case!" an ecstatic Edward Hayes, who
represented Caracappa at trial, said when told by a Newsday reporter
of the decision.

Hayes and Bruce Cutler, who represented Eppolito at trial, split with
their clients after the convictions. Eppolito and Caracappa said the
lawyers' representation of them was poor, an assessment with which
Weinstein disagreed. The defendants hired new lawyers, who brought
the motions that resulted in Friday's acquittals.

"I guess Rae and I didn't do such a bad job after all," Hayes said of
work that he and his co-counsel did in researching the
statute-of-limitations issue for the trial.

"Judge Weinstein has a reputation as a brilliant and independent
jurist, and this opinion confirms that," said Dan Nobel, Caracappa's
new lawyer.

Eppolito's new lawyer, Joseph Bondy, could not be reached.

Legal experts and officials said the statute-of-limitations issue
always was a troublesome part of the case.

Eppolito and Caracappa were indicted on March 9, 2005. The most
recent killing in the case took place in May 1991. Generally, under
federal criminal law, crimes alleged in a racketeering conspiracy
have to have occurred within five years of the indictment.

Before the trial, Weinstein frequently expressed reservations about
whether crimes so far in the past could be prosecuted within the
five-year statute of limitations.

To address the conflict, federal prosecutors charged Eppolito and
Caracappa with involvement in a Nevada drug sale in late 2004 and
early 2005. Prosecutors maintained that the Nevada crime was part of
the original racketeering enterprise conspiracy, thus extending the
alleged conspiracy beyond the crucial cutoff date of March 9, 2000.

Weinstein denied a defense pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment,
saying the nature of the alleged crimes required a full trial. When
the jury convicted Eppolito and Caracappa in April, the panel
specifically found that the conspiracy continued beyond March 9, 2000.

In his decision Friday, Weinstein stressed that prosecutors had
proved the defendants were involved in eight slayings, two
kidnappings and other wrongdoing. But as a matter of law, he said
that after Eppolito's and Caracappa's retirement from the Police
Department, by early 1990, "the conspiracy that began in New York in
the 1980s had come to a definitive close."

By the time the defendants moved to Las Vegas, Weinstein said, any
concealment done there was not part of the conspiracy.