Opinion ID: 1212404
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Other Obstructions of Justice

Text: In addition to giving Kaplan and Casso information that obstructed justice by helping Casso to eliminate potential witnesses against members of organized crime, including the instances described above, Eppolito and Caracappa provided information designed to allow Casso and others to escape self-incrimination or arrest. For example, in the late 1980s, Eppolito informed Kaplan that a trailer in New Jersey, used by a Lucchese Crime Family member, had been bugged and that its telephone was tapped. Kaplan passed that information to Casso; Casso relayed it to the owner of the trailer, who promptly had the bugging and wire-tapping devices removed. Eppolito also told Kaplan of a bug in a New Jersey restaurant that was owned and frequented by members of the Genovese Crime Family. Casso passed that information to the owner of the restaurant, and the members stopped talking ... on the bug. (Tr. 664.) In May 1990, Eppolito made an urgent call to Kaplan and arranged to meet him on the Long Island Expressway. Eppolito gave Kaplan information, which he had received from Caracappa, that Casso and Lucchese Crime Family boss Victor Amuso, among others, were about to be arrested. Kaplan alerted Amuso and tried to reach Casso; Casso was away but was alerted by Amuso. By the next day, both Amuso and Casso had become fugitives, gone on the lam. (Tr. 683-85.) While Casso was a fugitive, Kaplan maintained contact with him, meeting with him a score of times and continuing to relay to him sensitive law enforcement information received from Eppolito and Caracappa and to relay from Casso $4,000 a month to Eppolito and Caracappa. Casso was arrested in 1993.