Speaker 1: And a book everyone is going to want to read
Speaker 1: and probably won't be able to put down. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the fifty five carse Morning Show. Author Michael Kanal, and
Speaker 1: you probably have read his other books, The author of
Speaker 1: a Brotherhood Betrayed, The Man Behind The Rise and Fall
Speaker 1: of Murder, Inc. As well as three other works in nonfiction.
Speaker 1: Former editor of New York Times and contributed to The
Speaker 1: New Yorker, among other publications, he has written a new
Speaker 1: amazing book, Blood and the Badge, The Mafia, Two killer
Speaker 1: cops and a scandal that shocked the nation. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the fifty five Cars Morning Show, Michael Canal.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Brian, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So the subject matters of this book, and my understanding
Speaker 1: is there have been other books written about Lewis Epplito
Speaker 1: and Stephen Kara Koppa, the two New York cops that
Speaker 1: are the subject matter of the book, but yours is
Speaker 1: by far the definitive account of what they did and
Speaker 1: the crimes that they were engaged in while they were
Speaker 1: officers with the New York Police Department, so says even
Speaker 1: the former chief of the Rackets Division, a guy who
Speaker 1: wrote a book about the same two guys. Said, man,
Speaker 1: you uncovered stuff that I had no idea about. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about these two police officers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Kara Kappa were high ranking,
Speaker 2: decorated New York City detectives. They were not just cops,
Speaker 2: but really elite detectives, and in the late eighties and
Speaker 2: early nineties they were on the mafia payroll. They were
Speaker 2: paid a stipend of four thousand dollars a month to
Speaker 2: pass sensitive police information to the Lucse crime family. Who
Speaker 2: was whose phones were being tapped, who was under surveillance,
Speaker 2: who was about to be arrested, and most importantly, they
Speaker 2: used the police intelligence to identify who in the mafia
Speaker 2: ranks was a betrayer, who was a rat scol who
Speaker 2: was secretly cooperating with the government. And what's more, once
Speaker 2: those rats were identified, these two detectives helped to facilitate
Speaker 2: their murders and in at least one case, they pulled
Speaker 2: the trigger themselves.
Speaker 1: WHOA, that's writing stuff and the idea that they have
Speaker 1: all this inside information, Given how high up they were
Speaker 1: in the New York Police Department, how much damage did
Speaker 1: they do and how long did this this last that
Speaker 1: they were they were getting away with it.
Speaker 2: They got away with it for more than a decade.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was set an outrageous, brazen act. And
Speaker 2: I mean I think people, you know, people knew that
Speaker 2: these were that Louis Eppolito was what they call a
Speaker 2: dirty cop, and you know, some low level of corruption
Speaker 2: was was pretty common in the NYPD at that time.
Speaker 2: But nobody, nobody could have conceived of them working or
Speaker 2: the mafia and actually committing murders for the mafia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really unfathomable. I mean, I can understand, you know,
Speaker 1: the payoff, because we're all kind of used to that's
Speaker 1: a subject matter of so many Hollywood movies. You know,
Speaker 1: you kind of lose count. But that they were actively
Speaker 1: engaged in work for the Lukezy crime family is amazing.
Speaker 1: Now they were ultimately brought to justice, I understand, how
Speaker 1: do they get caught ultimately and how they ultimately get prosecuted.
Speaker 2: The amazing thing is that they weren't caught for so long.
Speaker 2: I mean, Louis Eplito was caught red handed passing a
Speaker 2: police file to a Gambino crime family heroin smuggler. The
Speaker 2: police rated this this man's home and found his own
Speaker 2: police file there. He had his own police file in
Speaker 2: his possession, and they found Louis ep Alito's fingerprints on
Speaker 2: the file. Amazingly, Internal Affairs Division dismissed the case. They
Speaker 2: acquitted him. The FEDS, the FBI and federal prosecutors began
Speaker 2: to understand what these men were up to, but did
Speaker 2: amazingly did not prosecute them because it would have corrupted
Speaker 2: other cases they were working on. And so it appeared
Speaker 2: that these two men were going to get off. They retired,
Speaker 2: they collected their police pensions, They moved to Las Vegas,
Speaker 2: and Louis Epolito used his retirement years to launch a
Speaker 2: movie career. He had small parts in a dozen films.
Speaker 2: And then a detective back in New York, a detective
Speaker 2: named Tommy Dade, who was getting set to retire, just
Speaker 2: happened to stumble into some evidence and he took that
Speaker 2: evidence to the Brooklyn DA's office and they revived this
Speaker 2: investigation and had had sat dormant for years.
Speaker 1: Well did any of the I have to imagine, certainly
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sort of presuming that
Speaker 1: members of the Lukazi crime family at some point or another,
Speaker 1: some were prosecuted or caught or you know, submitted to justice,
Speaker 1: that they would have advised the authorities that these two
Speaker 1: dirty cops were helping out and you know, maybe to
Speaker 1: reduce the time that they would have to serve, or
Speaker 1: to lessen their sentence or something. But it seems to
Speaker 1: me that that was that would be a low hanging
Speaker 1: fruit for someone to try to better his situation if
Speaker 1: he was arrested.
Speaker 2: Well, you're right, that's exactly what happened. The man who
Speaker 2: was essentially their patrons in the Lucas crime family, a
Speaker 2: man named gas Pipe Kso he flipped. He had spent
Speaker 2: most of his adult life killing informants and then he
Speaker 2: became the biggest informant of all. And he was all
Speaker 2: set to testify against these these two detectives, and then
Speaker 2: something unexpected happened. Gas Pipe began to bad mouth the
Speaker 2: other the other people who had flipped. He began to
Speaker 2: bad mouth in particular Sammy the Bold Ravana, who was
Speaker 2: critical to the to the prosecution of John Gottie, and
Speaker 2: he called uh Gravano a liar. Now, this panicked the
Speaker 2: prosecutors because they did not want that prosecution to be
Speaker 2: called into question. So what how did they solve that problem?
Speaker 2: They solved it by ripping up, ripping up gas Pipe
Speaker 2: Casso's polea agreement and sending him to Supermax prison. So
Speaker 2: who was the beneficiary of that? The two detectives, because
Speaker 2: all of a sudden there was nobody to testify against them.
Speaker 1: Oh my, it's amazing how that unfolds. Gas Pipe. I
Speaker 1: got to ask, where the hell did that name come from?
Speaker 2: Well, his father's nickname was was gas pipe Is. His
Speaker 2: father worked down on the docks in Brooklyn and supposedly
Speaker 2: used a you know, used an iron pipe to enforce
Speaker 2: his rules. And the son, the son inherited the nickname,
Speaker 2: but he didn't particularly like the nickname, and so his friends,
Speaker 2: his friends didn't use that nickname as presence.
Speaker 1: How about that?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Did this did these guys, in their capers and their
Speaker 1: antics and they're being involved with murder and working with
Speaker 1: organized crime resultant caused any reforms to come about in
Speaker 1: the New York Police Department? Or was this just another
Speaker 1: couple of characters and bad apples in the barrel that
Speaker 1: they were trying at least to ferret out. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of like I don't know, like a movie
Speaker 1: like Cerproco or something, because this kind of thing was
Speaker 1: was was obviously a prevalent thing, shaking people down, taking
Speaker 1: money from purpose and being paid off because it's sort
Speaker 1: of common in the old days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't know that it
Speaker 2: caused it caused there to be any reforms. I think
Speaker 2: I think what happened is that they got away with
Speaker 2: a lot of dirty stuff because of all the corruption
Speaker 2: in cases that had come before them, Serpaco, the Napp,
Speaker 2: the famous Nap Commission, And I think the NYPD, if
Speaker 2: they had wanted to, would could have sussed out what
Speaker 2: these detectives were doing. But they really didn't want another scandal.
Speaker 2: They really didn't have the appetite for any more newspaper headlines,
Speaker 2: and so they kind of quietly tried to sweep all
Speaker 2: of us under the rug.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, Well, you mentioned earlier one of them was sort
Speaker 1: of known to be a quote unquote dirty cop, not
Speaker 1: to the level of murder, but was there I guess
Speaker 1: that culture of not saying anything within the New York
Speaker 1: Police Department. You know, you don't brat rat out a
Speaker 1: brother officer, even if it's bad for everybody else that
Speaker 1: that that culture existed during this period of time one percent.
Speaker 2: I mean when when Tommy Dad's the detective that I
Speaker 2: mentioned who stumbled into the into that evidence, when he
Speaker 2: began to investigate this this case, he got a lot
Speaker 2: of heat from other police officers. You know, you don't
Speaker 2: you don't go after one of your own, but he persisted. Well.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons Michael Vecchioni, the former chief of
Speaker 1: the Rackets Division who did write the other book, gave
Speaker 1: you so much credit is because you were able to
Speaker 1: actually speak with some of the mobsters that were working
Speaker 1: with these two cops, which had never happened before. How
Speaker 1: is it that you were able to get access to
Speaker 1: those guys.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I spoke to Sammy the boll Gravano,
Speaker 2: and I spoke to a former Colombo hit man. And
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the things that really surprised me
Speaker 2: about doing this reporting and research for this book is
Speaker 2: that the cops and the gangsters all know each other,
Speaker 2: and in many cases they're friends. You know, they grew
Speaker 2: up together in the old neighborhoods and went to the
Speaker 2: same schools, and they they to this day, they drink
Speaker 2: in the same bars, and it's a little bit arbitrary
Speaker 2: in some cases as to whether a kid would become
Speaker 2: a cop or whether he would join a crime family.
Speaker 2: And so it's you know, very they're very tight knit
Speaker 2: and they all know each other. So I actually found
Speaker 2: those sources through the law enforcement people that I had interviewed.
Speaker 1: How about that? And I suppose, I mean, after the
Speaker 1: passage of time, that it wouldn't be as much of
Speaker 1: a big deal for them to actually reveal some of
Speaker 1: these quote unquote secrets to you for publication because their
Speaker 1: careers are over and they're in their retirement. I presume
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: I think that's exactly right, Brian. I mean, they probably
Speaker 2: wouldn't have opened up to me and talked to me
Speaker 2: ten years ago or fifteen years ago. But the two
Speaker 2: detectives in question went to jail. They died in jail.
Speaker 2: The DEA agents, FBI agents and detectives that I spoke
Speaker 2: to are pretty much all retired. Some time has passed,
Speaker 2: and so they were I think they trusted me and
Speaker 2: they were willing to open up and just I mean,
Speaker 2: it was really an amazing experience because once they started
Speaker 2: to talk to me, these amazing stories came out, you know,
Speaker 2: just every time they would tell me a story, I
Speaker 2: would think that could be a Netflix series. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, and they never did. It was sort of
Speaker 2: their code to not talk about these things. But when
Speaker 2: they did, you know, they really just really revealed a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, this is one of those truth is
Speaker 1: almost a stranger than fiction kind of things. It's certainly
Speaker 1: a template for any corrupt cop kind of movie, and
Speaker 1: I imagine probably will end up being a Netflix series.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, fascinating stuff, and I appreciate you spending time
Speaker 1: with my listeners to me about the book, Blood and
Speaker 1: the Badge, the Mafia, two killer cops, and the scandal
Speaker 1: of the shock the Nation. I know my listeners are
Speaker 1: going to buy these up because it's just such an
Speaker 1: amazing story. Michael Kennelly, author, It's been a pleasure speaking
Speaker 1: with you, and thanks for getting this down. I guess
Speaker 1: as an author, real quick, I have to know this
Speaker 1: given that other books have been written about these guys,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned several times, Now, what motivated you as
Speaker 1: an author to pursue this particular story and write another book?
Speaker 1: How did I mean, did you have a feeling that
Speaker 1: there was more out there that people just hadn't touched on,
Speaker 1: or did it just fascinate you as a subject matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's it exactly. I mean, this has been
Speaker 2: this topic has been written them out before, as you said,
Speaker 2: but nobody has really written the big comprehensive book about it.
Speaker 2: And I was pretty confident that I could I could
Speaker 2: do that, that I that I could get people to
Speaker 2: talk to me and really do a deep dive into it.
Speaker 2: And happily, I think that's the way it.
Speaker 1: Turned out, apparently so well received on the reporting sites,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they'll come and knocking on your door
Speaker 1: to turn it into some sort of movie or series, sir,
Speaker 1: and I wish you the best of walk on that,
Speaker 1: Michael Canal, real pleasure to have you on. And your
Speaker 1: book is on my blog page fifty about casy dot
Speaker 1: com with the links of people can buy a copy
Speaker 1: and I'll encourage them to do that.