MOB COPS RAT TIGHTENED NOOSE: PROSECUTOR

Artist's sketch of U.S. Attorney Dan Wenner during closing arguments.
He was billed as the man who could put the so-called Mafia Cops away for life.

And star witness Burton Kaplan lived up to his billing - giving
enough specific details to pin eight mob murders on Louis Eppolito
and Stephen Caracappa, federal prosecutors argued yesterday.

"It is one of the bloodiest, most violent betrayals of the badge that
this city has ever seen," prosecutor Dan Wenner said in closing arguments.

"These corrupt men led double lives. They did nothing less than arm
the homicidal maniac Anthony [Gaspipe] Casso with the ammo and means
to leave an avalanche of death in his wake."

Lawyers for Eppolito and Caracappa contend that Kaplan made up the
whole crazy conspiracy to get out of prison before he dies of old age.

But Wenner argued that Kaplan, a 72-year-old marijuana dealer who
hopes to be released soon from a 27-year prison term, couldn't have
made up all the damning details.

"Think how dangerous it is to frame a cop. Cops have paperwork. They
have time cards," Wenner said. "Burt Kaplan testified about things
that happened on certain days. How would he know that the cops
weren't somewhere else on those days?"

Kaplan testified that from 1986 through 1993, he acted as liaison
between the cops and Casso, underboss of the Luchese crime family.
The cops provided names of informants and performed kidnappings and
murder - all for a fee.

Cobbling together the case, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the
Brooklyn U.S. attorney and the Brooklyn district attorney found
computer requests for records, and both cops' numbers in Kaplan's
phone book under a code name, Marco.

When Kaplan revealed he'd paid the cops to murder a jeweler he
believed was an informant, he didn't know where the body was.
Investigators found a Brooklyn garage owner who did.

But Caracappa's lawyer, Edward Hayes, used some of the same details
to attack Kaplan's claims. The garage owner, for instance, said he
helped bury the jeweler, but didn't say anything about the man being
buried with a plastic bag on his head, a black scarf knotted tightly
around his throat and a binding cuffing the man's hands.

"How could he miss all that?" Hayes asked.

Caracappa's other lawyer, Ray Koshetz, made clear the conspiracy was
ancient, with the last murder occurring in 1990. The law requires
prosecutors must prove the conspiracy continued to at least March 2000.

"Casso's allegations against Eppolito and Caracappa were dead as a
doornail by the dawn of the new millennium," Koshetz said.

Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, also are charged with bribery, money
laundering and drug dealing. They face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The jury may get the case today after Bruce Cutler, Eppolito's
lawyer, offers his closing argument.