Read Online Friends of the Family by Tommy Dades - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tommy Dades
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carloads of old files from the Feds, and eventually they would need to speakwith Gaspipe Casso, who was still in federal custody. But with a little luck and a lot of hard work he felt it could be done.
It wasn’t just ego that made Vecchione want to keep the case in Hynes’s office. It was obvious from that first day that this was going to be a difficult investigation with only a limited chance of success, but he was convinced that legally it would be substantially easier for the state to get a conviction. Vecchione was going to use Betty Hydell’s statement to try to make the Jimmy Hydell murder case against Eppolito and Caracappa. Any additional charges he could make stick would be a nice bonus, but a murder conviction would put them away for twenty-five years to the rest of their lives.
The federal government couldn’t prosecute Jimmy Hydell’s murder. There is no straight murder statute on the federal level. In extreme cases the federal government uses the civil rights laws to bring murderers to justice, based on the concept that they have deprived an individual of his or her civil rights by killing them, but in this situation that would be a tough charge to make stick. The only charge under which the Feds could prosecute the two cops was a RICO. RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, was passed in 1970 to give law enforcement a potent legal weapon to fight the Mafia. RICO allows the government to prosecute people for a pattern of criminal activity rather than specific crimes. They could be prosecuted for being a member of the Mafia. Specifically, to be found guilty under the RICO statute an individual has to commit a minimum of two “predicate acts,” or crimes, in cooperation with at least some of the same people over a substantial period of time. One crime, no matter how heinous it might be; several criminal actions committed within a very short time span; or a series of criminal actions that can’t be connected in some way don’t qualify for prosecution under the RICO statute.
Vecchione didn’t see how the Feds could charge Eppolito and Caracappa under RICO. The two or more underlying crimes that constitute a RICO violation have to be committed within ten years of the indictment. No matter what crimes the two cops committed for Casso, their relationship with him had ended more than a decade earlier. Casso had been arrested in January 1993. Eppolito had retired in 1990, Caracappa two years later. Dades had learned that the two cops were living out in Las Vegas, presumably no longer involved with the Lucchese crime family. Unless they were still committing crimes in the desert for the Luccheses, the statute oflimitations had run out for a RICO. And if the Feds couldn’t make a RICO case, they couldn’t prosecute the cops.
But on the state level there is no statute of limitations on murder charges.
Vecchione knew that the Feds might be extremely unhappy if the Brooklyn DA was able to make a murder case against cops that the Eastern District had in its hands years earlier but failed to pursue. That’s not exactly the type of publicity any U.S. Attorney wants. So they might make it difficult for the state to proceed, but they wouldn’t dare risk blocking the investigation. Eventually they would hand over whatever materials they had.
Network television has recently popularized the concept of a “cold case,” a case that hadn’t been solved within a reasonable period of time and is no longer the subject of an active investigation. In other words, a case nobody is losing any sleep over. The media has made cold cases a hot concept. And law enforcement has plenty of them to solve. It is estimated that there are more than a hundred thousand unsolved murders in the United States. Cold cases. It’s an old theme with great dramatic possibilities.
Cold cases live forever on paper, in neglected files crammed into overstuffed file cabinets. The first thing Tommy Dades and Joe Ponzi needed
It wasn’t just ego that made Vecchione want to keep the case in Hynes’s office. It was obvious from that first day that this was going to be a difficult investigation with only a limited chance of success, but he was convinced that legally it would be substantially easier for the state to get a conviction. Vecchione was going to use Betty Hydell’s statement to try to make the Jimmy Hydell murder case against Eppolito and Caracappa. Any additional charges he could make stick would be a nice bonus, but a murder conviction would put them away for twenty-five years to the rest of their lives.
The federal government couldn’t prosecute Jimmy Hydell’s murder. There is no straight murder statute on the federal level. In extreme cases the federal government uses the civil rights laws to bring murderers to justice, based on the concept that they have deprived an individual of his or her civil rights by killing them, but in this situation that would be a tough charge to make stick. The only charge under which the Feds could prosecute the two cops was a RICO. RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, was passed in 1970 to give law enforcement a potent legal weapon to fight the Mafia. RICO allows the government to prosecute people for a pattern of criminal activity rather than specific crimes. They could be prosecuted for being a member of the Mafia. Specifically, to be found guilty under the RICO statute an individual has to commit a minimum of two “predicate acts,” or crimes, in cooperation with at least some of the same people over a substantial period of time. One crime, no matter how heinous it might be; several criminal actions committed within a very short time span; or a series of criminal actions that can’t be connected in some way don’t qualify for prosecution under the RICO statute.
Vecchione didn’t see how the Feds could charge Eppolito and Caracappa under RICO. The two or more underlying crimes that constitute a RICO violation have to be committed within ten years of the indictment. No matter what crimes the two cops committed for Casso, their relationship with him had ended more than a decade earlier. Casso had been arrested in January 1993. Eppolito had retired in 1990, Caracappa two years later. Dades had learned that the two cops were living out in Las Vegas, presumably no longer involved with the Lucchese crime family. Unless they were still committing crimes in the desert for the Luccheses, the statute oflimitations had run out for a RICO. And if the Feds couldn’t make a RICO case, they couldn’t prosecute the cops.
But on the state level there is no statute of limitations on murder charges.
Vecchione knew that the Feds might be extremely unhappy if the Brooklyn DA was able to make a murder case against cops that the Eastern District had in its hands years earlier but failed to pursue. That’s not exactly the type of publicity any U.S. Attorney wants. So they might make it difficult for the state to proceed, but they wouldn’t dare risk blocking the investigation. Eventually they would hand over whatever materials they had.
Network television has recently popularized the concept of a “cold case,” a case that hadn’t been solved within a reasonable period of time and is no longer the subject of an active investigation. In other words, a case nobody is losing any sleep over. The media has made cold cases a hot concept. And law enforcement has plenty of them to solve. It is estimated that there are more than a hundred thousand unsolved murders in the United States. Cold cases. It’s an old theme with great dramatic possibilities.
Cold cases live forever on paper, in neglected files crammed into overstuffed file cabinets. The first thing Tommy Dades and Joe Ponzi needed
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