BBC News Friday, 7 April 2006, 21:18 GMT 22:18 UK
| Double lives of New York's 'Mafia' cops
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 Just as the final season of the Sopranos airs on TV here, two ex-detectives are convicted of moonlighting as hired killers for the Mob.
You couldn't make it up. In a further example of the parallels between life and art, Louis Eppolito - one of the fallen cops - actually played a walk-on part in the classic Scorcese Mob movie "Goodfellas". Then he unsuccessfully tried his hand at Hollywood scriptwriting. The tale of how New York city detectives Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito doubled up as brutal henchmen for the Luchese crime family has enough plot material for a dozen Sopranos spin-offs. |
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4889984.stm
The Times Friday, 7th April 2006, By James Bone in New York
From Big Apple to bad apples: the cops who killed for the mob. NEW YORK’S “Mafia Cops” were convicted last night of betraying their badges as police officers to work as hitmen for the mob.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2123404,00.html
For numerous articles on this devastating subject:
One of the key points of this web journal is to address the failures in government which I consider to be tantamount to organised crime. The above activity by these two NYPD detectives moonlighting as mafia hit men took place from 1986 to 1990. From 1982 to 1989 in New York City, I lived in and dealt with a landlord who was a reputed Mafioso to which the Email below refers. I have found the past eight years in this tenant management environment in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea in London to be far worse. I will be comparing and contrasting these two experiences in great detail in this web journal, but the conviction of these two police detectives in New York yesterday gives me an opportunity to introduce my experience during the same period of time in New York. It is also relevant to bring this into comment at this time given the local election campaign now underway for the 4th May 2006 local elections in the UK. In each instance I addressed problems which threatned the lives of tenants in multiple dwelling environments. One of the similarities between each of these experiences is the effort to destroy human activity and life to stop my collection of evidence, documenting and reporting to the authorities problems which need to be addressed. Here is an Email I sent yesterday to BBC News24 after a report on this conviction which provides just a couple points about the problems I addressed amid the threat of crime to all the residents and implications for the failure to address the kinds of problems I raise properly and effectively. ---------- Forwarded Message ----------Subject: NYPD Cops Moonlight As Mafia Hit MenDate: Friday 07 April 2006 15:19From: Gary D ChanceTo: news24@bbc.co.ukThat was a stunning report about the conviction of these two NYPD detectives.Never think that I am overstating a comment when I note that corruption with the mob can occur within organisations like SOCA. [Recently announced launch of the Serious Organised Crime Agency in the UK]One of these guys helped establish the NYPD's organised crime homicide unit. They met at the start of their careers at the NYPD's Police Academy in 1969. They gave a wrong tip to a mob boss, and an innocent guy was murdered while having Christmas dinner. They've been at it for a very long time. See the Times Online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2123404,00.htmlI've been reporting corruption for years here involving the police and others, but nothing has been done. It's no use trying to cover up this activity. Too many people know what is happening.It's possible to pick up corruption when things just don't work. When people don't do a proper job, it's legitimate to ask questions.1. I was dealing with a local NYPD Community Police Officer about crime in the building where I lived. I dropped off some info for him at the 19th Precinct. He never got it Later in court proceedings the reputed Mafioso landlord's daughter was quoting some of it to me during a break in an effort to be abusive and intimidating. These people think they can do anything and get away with it. Usually they can.2. The head of the New York State Housing Department's Harassment Unit was charged with corruption for accepting bribes from a landlord. The FBI had video taped him doing it. He had a spotless reputation and was highly regarded in New York. The public was stunned by this. Earlier I had sent a complaint about this NY State Housing Department's failure to award me rent overcharge recovery after a determination by the Harassment Unit regarding an illusionary sublet. This complaint went to the then US Attorney Rudolf Guiliani.Once the mob gets into the community it's there to stay because they dominate with fear. When it's not even possible to go to the police for proper law enforcement, there is a very big problem.This has been going on here for years. I am very sceptical about SOCA actually doing very much because it just moves over the same people under one umbrella. If a system doesn't work, it's usually due to the people involved. Moving people around in different organisations usually doesn't work. If it didn't work before, it won't work after the change when all the same people are still there all the hype and marketing blah blah notwithstanding.This Government intends to bring in Casino complexes. This will set up big time organised crime in this country which will never be removed. Casinos are sought for money laundering. This has recently turned up in Florida with regard to laundering political contributions through a casino connecting former House Majority Leader DeLay. See the Wayne Madsen Report for 4th April 2006 at http://www.waynemadsenreport.com.You should run this report with as much detail as is possible about these guys and what they did as moonlighting hit men for the mob while supposedly enforcing the law. It's not so much about what has happened in New York where the mob is entrenched, but it's all about what might very well take place in this country big time if it is not already happening. In my direct experience those supposedly enforcing the law are the biggest criminals and no amount of complaining will change them.*****End of Email*****Certain kinds of housing in New York City is subject to rent control or rent stabilisation. Landlords who renovate their buildings are entitled to a tax abatement for ten years if they put the residential units under rent stabilisation. This is to encourage urban renewal. This programme is called the 421A tax abatement programme. Once the builiding the has been renovated, initial rents are detremined as part of the rent stabilisation programme with increases determined by the Rent Stabilisation Board depending upon the length of the lease and vacancies. Vacancy brought a premium of 15% on top of the lease rent increase established by the Rent Stabilisation Baord each time a lease was renewed. There was an incentive to turnover tenants to get higher rent incrases. There was also a tendency to sublet rent stabilised units at the market rate or more. As rents increased dramatically and residential housing became scarce in Manhattan, the temptation to sublet for a profit increased. However, the Rent Stabilisation law made this explicitly illegal the penalties for which were a forfeiture of the lease to the person who sublet the unit and triple recovery for the amount overcharged. The latter is the same as a fraud penalty found in US law. This does not mean that subletting was forbidden. Units could be sublet up to one year at the rental amount of the lease or plus 10% if it was furnished. This allowed for tenants who were taking sabbaticals or whatever to do so. I found out that I was in an unlawful sublet quite by accident. I did not suspect that anyone on the upper eastside of Manhattan would try to get away with an unlawful sublet especially professionals when they were dealing with people who on the whole were savvy. I sublet a flat from an Estate Agent who occupied the ground floor of the building. I relied upon the professional character of the Estate Agent who was located right there in the same premises. It is perfectly legal to sublet a flat in a non rent controlled or rent stabilised building. This building was new. It had opened in October 1980, and I moved in at the beginning of October 1982. I had no reason to think that this was not legitimate. After quietly living there for a couple years, I addressed a crime problem which had started in the summer of 1984. I organised the tenants inviting the Crime Prevention Detective from the 19th Precinct to meet with us to disuss how best we could protect ourselves, and 3/4s of the tenants in this small building with a total of 23 units attended the meeting. The meeting held in September 1984 was excellent. This detective had inspected the building beforehand pointing out problems and talked with us for a couple hours going through the means by which we could protect outsevles from crime based upon individual characteristics of the building while answering all our questions. Astonishingly, we larned that there had been six not three burglaries in the past year: 25% of the building's residential. The three we did not know about occurred all at once. The burglars posing as lift repairman were allowed into the building by the Estate Agent on the ground floor. They then locked the lift out of operation while they buglarised three of the four units on the fifth floor. One of the original tenants who had moved in two years earlier when the building opened also pointed out at this meeting that there had been a crime problem two years earlier. At that time the tenants got together and determined that those who had not changed their locks thereby leaving the keys with the landlord had been burglarised. Those who had changed locks and kept their keys as they were entitled to do by court decision had not been burglarised. Conclusion: change your locks and keep your keys. This was standard for everyone who knew about living in New York. It's why the person who got the court ruling succeeded in challenging a landlord's demand for a copy of the key to the premises. I recall that this is what had happened to me during the first week of my residency there in early October 1982. Shortly after 9:00 am one morning, someone inserted a key in one of my locks but could not open the door. They ran through the door to the stairs and escaped before I cold see who it was. The same thing has happened to me in this premises in London. One day I heard someone insert a key in one of my locks and try to get in. When that failed since there are two other locks, whoever it was ran away. It is not uncommon for those who have access to keys to commit these crimes. A couple months later the porter tried to deliver a rider to the lease. I would not accept it and told him that the Estate Agent was the tenant and held the lease. I then got curious as to why I was being offered a new rider to the lease. I asked a neighbour for a copy of this rider. That's when I found out that this building was rent stabilised. I sought information from the New York State Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) and filed a complaint for what was termed an Illusionary Sublet. Any attempt to interfere with this complaint procedure constitutes harassment. Since I received a letter from the Estate Agent after filing my initial complaint stating that "we" had to move thus evicting me from my home, I immediately filed a harassment complaint with the DHCR which had a special unit in lower Manhattan specialising in harassment. These were processed fast in order to prevent landlords from harassing and driving tenants out during the more lenghty administrative proceedings. I got a hearing within six weeks where a determination was made that I resided in an Illusionary Sublet and was awarded the lease to the unit so that I would have that protection against any unlawful acts committed by the landlord. There was no question about it. The landlord had to give me the lease to the premises which I was promptly granted. There was no doubt about the fact of an Illusionary Sublet. This Estate Agent also had the lease to the unit below mine and sublet it at market rates or above as well. As a result of dealing with the crime problem in the buildng, I had learned that the tenant below me also sublet from the Estate Agent. Again, until I learned that this was a rent stabilised building, I did not suspect that anything was unlawful. Anything that is done to drive people from their homes is considered harassment: failing to provide essential services especialy heat and hot water and failing to provide essential security are high on the list of actionable harassment offenses. By generally making life miserable for a tenant or tenants the landlord and/or his/her agent are liable for harassment charges and a determination. The law has become quite explicit and well developed in this area because landlard harassment is quite common and can cause serious problems for people. Although I had obtained the lease for the unit at the rent stabilised amount, I waited for a determination about the rent that I had overpaid. I got an initial reply from the DHCR's Rent Administration office which provided me with the landlord's reply and a copy of the lease which had been granted to the Estate Agent. I was thus able to calculate the rental overcharge for the period of a little over two years until I filed the complaint. I had overpaid about $6,000. Thus, I was entitled to a $18,000 recovery including the triple liability award for an Illusionary Sublet. I never received this money which would have made all the difference in my life at that time. As it was, white collar crime and the possible crime we were subjected to in this building along with it undermanagement were to get deeper and broader over the next few years. There was no doubt that the landlord had given two units to the Estate Agent for the sole purpose of subletting at a profit in the market. Although the landlord's agent in their office claimed that they had no idea how this could have happened, it was clear to me that they knew. It was obvious that this Estate Agent lived elsewhere. I believe that she was listed in the phone book. On top of this at one point when I visted her in her new offices for some business matter, she said that she owned five condomiums and asked if I wanted to buy one! She was a wheeler dealer. It was easy to see how she financed her operation, and neither she nor the landlord ever had to pay back the overcharge let alone the triple liability damages for fraud. This was just the very beginning of this situation which went on for years. I continued to address tenant health and safety issues. By doing so I learned just how deep the white collar crime and corruption went. It spread across the community and directly resulted in the death of an 18-year-old boy who was murdered on another of this landlord's unlawful premises in addition to the crime which went on in the building where I lived including the attempts to kill me which resulted in the death of someone killed by mistaken identity. I will be detailing this experience from time to time by comparison and contrast with this situation as I've done today because of the conviction of these two New York City detectives for moonlighting as Mafia hit men. They carried out their crimes between 1986 and 1990 which was the same period of time I was unearthing and addressing the crime and corruption by a reputed Mafioso landlord of the building where I lived on the upper eastside of Manhatten. I do not claim that these were connected in anyway. I want to point out that such crime and corruption was widespead at that time in New York City and appears to be universal as it is characteristic of my experence in London during the past eght years and for several reasons is much worse in London. The criminals in London come from the government, and there is no recourse. In January 1986 the corruption of New York City began to unravel publicly with the suicide death of Queens Borough President Donald Manes and the inauguration for a third term of Mayor Ed Koch. Jack Newfield and Wayne Barret document this in their book "City for Sale: Ed Koch and the Betrayal of New York," Harper & Row, New York, 1988. Noted on the book's jacket was the fact that ". . . a dozen major city leaders and nearly a hundred minor city officials [were] convicted of crimes from accepting bribes to outright extortion." But, this description went on to note that Ed Koch was "seduced . . . by power." I submit that the same will occur here in London resulting from the time of my recent experience but will be far moer devastating and damaging since it involved the complete abrogation of the democratic rule of law, its institutions and the subjugation of the sovereignty of the UK to a foreign power. You will note that since the time of Ed Koch, the length of time any mayor can serve in office has been limited to two terms (eight years) in New York City.