Killing a feared Gambino capo proved to be a lot more difficult for detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa than the allegedly murderous Mafia Cops thought it would be, former Luchese underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso (right) has told the feds. 

It took seven months to get the job done, and the delay caused quite a bit of tension between Casso and the ex-detectives, according to secret FBI reports obtained by Gang Land. The men are slated for trial this month for eight mob hits from 1986 to Nov. 6, 1990, when they allegedly gunned down Edward Lino in Brooklyn. 

The plot to kill Lino, a feared gangster for rival Mafia boss John Gotti, began April 6, 1990, about seven weeks before Eppolito and Caracappa tipped off Gaspipe and Luchese boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso that they would be hit with labor racketeering charges, according to court papers in the case.

Part of Casso’s angst stemmed from his decision to flee when he learned of his imminent arrest. Hiding out in New Jersey made it problematic to communicate with his intermediary in the scheme. But Gaspipe was also troubled that his detectives were playing fast and loose with him, according to the FBI documents. 

Here’s the inside story of the scheme to whack Lino, as Casso laid it out to FBI agents James Brennan and Richard Rudolph when the gangster began cooperating in early 1994.

Lino (left) was marked for death because Casso and Amuso feared he would retaliate against them if Gotti ever learned that they had been responsible for the

1986 bombing death of his first underboss, Frank DeCicco. The capo was also a potential threat if they ever succeeded in killing the Dapper Don, according to a report by agents Brennan and Rudolph.

“Lino was a formidable enforcer for Gotti and (Casso) and Amuso (right) decided to eliminate a potential problem with Lino” by “using the cops” because by doing so it would be “less likely that the Gambino family or others would find out who was responsible,” the agents wrote. Indeed, the Lino slaying was a mystery to the mob as well as the feds until Casso himself fingered the detectives in the hit.

Gaspipe, who was then allegedly funneling $4000 a month to the Mafia Cops  for details about sensitive police investigations including the identities of informants who would invariably turn up dead, asked his intermediary in the scheme, drug dealer Burton Kaplan, to find out “if the cops would be interested in doing it,” wrote Brennan and Rudolph.

“‘The cops’ told Kaplan that it would be ‘no problem’ to do it because they knew Lino well.” But they said they “needed some guns to do the hit” and asked that Casso “provide them with two revolvers and a car that resembled an unmarked detective’s car” that they could use for the rubout, the agents wrote.

Casso obtained a “four-door gray Plymouth that had been a police vehicle” and two handguns, and had underlings place the keys in the ashtray and two

revolvers in the trunk. The car was parked at a predetermined location in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn for “the cops” to retrieve it, the agents wrote.

Casso “checked on the car several hours later and it was gone,” the agents wrote.

But getting to Lino was not as easy as “the cops” had envisioned. The detectives reported that “at one point, they considered killing Lino in his home but that it would prove to be too difficult,” the agents wrote.

Months later, however, the “the cops” reported that the car “had broken down on them the last time they were near Lino’s home.” As a result, they returned it so Gaspipe “could have it repaired.” This insolence made the gangster explode when he returned from a hideout 50 miles away from the city and personally examined the car, the agents wrote.

The auto “was a wreck, filthy and in poor running condition” and looked like “the cops” had used the car for their personal use “extensively during the several months they had it,” the agents wrote. And, they added, when Casso

complained to Kaplan about the condition of the car, Kaplan said: “Don’t worry, they will find a car to use.”

“We’re not sure, but since Louie had already retired, we believe Steve provided an official car for the hit,” said an official involved in the case.

Two days later, sources said, Eppolito swaggered into the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and made his way to a private room where Kaplan was recovering from eye surgery. With a flourish, he dropped a copy of the New York Daily News open to a story with a headline that screamed: “Cohort of Gotti slain in Brooklyn,” on Kaplan’s chest.

“It’s done. We did it,” he said.

In addition to Lino’s slaying, Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, will go to trial for six other murders, and charges of bribery, obstruction of justice, and attempted murder as part of a racketeering conspiracy that began in 1979 and ended last March when they were arrested. Eppolito is also charged with a 1987 slaying of an unidentified victim.

Last week, prosecutors dropped two other murder charges, called predicate

acts, from the indictment in an obvious effort to accede to strong suggestions by Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein that they pare down the case.

Even so, Gang Land expects the government’s case to include about 70 witnesses, including the 71-year-old Kaplan, an admitted intermediary between Casso and the ex-detectives, and the linchpin of the case.

Previously, sources said, the prosecutors decided against adding charges that “the cops” were involved in a conspiracy to murder Charles Rose, (left)  the late federal prosecutor whose address and a post office box Casso said they supplied him through Kaplan in late 1991 and 1992, while Gaspipe was still a fugitive.

As Gang Land reported last year, Casso plotted to kill Rose because he surmised that the prosecutor had been the anonymous source who was quoted as saying that the likely motive for the slaying of an architect was that he was having an affair with Casso’s wife.

Sources said that Kaplan confirmed that Gaspipe plotted to murder Rose, but the turncoat told prosecutors that when “the cops” learned that Casso planned to kill the prosecutor, they said they would no longer have anything to do with the scheme, and didn’t.

Jury selection in the trial, which is expected to take six-to-eight weeks, begins February 21. If convicted of any of the murders, the men, who have denied any wrongdoing, face life in prison.  

On January 26, 2006, the Criminal Justice Section of the New York State Bar Association presented  Gang Land an award for media excellence at its annual meeting at the Marriot Marquis in Manhattan. The New York Sun photog HeuiChul Kim was there to record the moment.