Opinion ID: 1212404
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The District Court's Statute-of-Limitations-Based Order of Acquittal on the RICO Conspiracy Count

Text: After the verdict, Eppolito and Caracappa made various motions to set aside the verdicts. To the extent pertinent to this appeal, Eppolito and Caracappa moved pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 29 for judgments of acquittal on the RICO conspiracy count, arguing that the evidence at trial was insufficient to establish that the charged enterprise continued to exist as late as March 9, 2000, or that the enterprise was conducted through a pattern of racketeering activity that continued to that date. In a Memorandum, Order and Judgment dated June 30, 2006, reported at 436 F.Supp.2d 532 ( Eppolito I ), the court granted that motion. Its reasoning was as follows: In the present case, the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants conspired to conduct the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. Moreover, although it was not required by the charges in the indictment, the government proved that the defendants. in fact engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity through their involvement in at least eight murders, two kidnapings, and various acts of bribery, tampering, retaliation, and obstruction of justice. The defendants, together with Frank Santoro, Jr. and Burton Kaplan, established a subcontracting arrangement with members of organized crime, represented primarily by co-conspirator Anthony Casso. Through this enterprise, the defendants exploited their positions as present or past officers of the New York City police department in order to supply confidential law enforcement information to Casso and to carry out murders and kidnapings under color of law. In exchange for their services, the defendants were highly compensated, receiving a retainer of 4,000 dollars a month for years and an additional 25,000 to 65,000 dollars per murder contract. It is unclear precisely when this conspiracy came to an end. It could be seen as having ended when defendant Caracappa retired from the police department in 1992, or when Casso, the defendants' primary client, was arrested in 1993. It may have lasted until Kaplan moved back to New York and was arrested in 1996. Up until that point, some remnant of the original enterprise arguably remained, and there was a possiblealthough minuscule threat of continued racketeering activity connected to that enterprise. But once Anthony Casso and Burton Kaplan had both been arrested, once the two defendants had both retired from the police force and re-established themselves on the opposite side of the country, the conspiracy that began in New York in the 1980s had come to a definite close. The defendants no longer had access to confidential law enforcement information and were no longer in contact with their old associates in the Lucchese crime family. Their enterprise had effectively been put out of business by their own retirements and their compatriots' arrests . . . . The government's inclusion of the four Nevada acts does not serve to lengthen the life of this conspiracy to within the five-year statute of limitations. The government maintains that the jury could have determined that these four acts were evidence of a continuing business venture on the part of the defendantsa sort of mom and pop general store of crimethrough which they sold members of organized crime whatever services they were in a position to provide from 1986 until their arrests in 2005. This theory was not supported by the evidence at trial. While the 1994-1996 monetary transaction involved two members of the earlier racketeering conspiracynamely, Burton Kaplan and defendant Eppolitothis act was essentially a personal loan from Kaplan to Eppolito, unconnected to the original enterprise or to any other enterprise with which the defendants had been associated. . . . The proceeds for this loan came from Kaplan's marijuana trafficking business, in which neither of the defendants had ever participated. Kaplan himself explicitly testified that, while the defendants had on occasion volunteered their law enforcement services in aid of this business, he had turned them down because it had nothing to do with the other crimes he was committing with them during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Eppolito's agreement to take marijuana proceeds from Kaplan was in no way a sale of his or Caracappa's services to Kaplan. Rather, it was a favor performed by Kaplan for Eppolito, tinged, as favors between criminals often are, by an acceptance of complicity on the part of the one receiving the favor. As for the 2004-2005 money laundering and narcotics charges, these crimes are also most accurately characterized as singular, sporadic acts of criminalityprecisely the sort of criminal activity not covered by the laws against racketeering. . . . Drawing every inference in favor of the government, . . . these acts could at best be seen as having been performed in furtherance of a new enterprise, unconnected to the original one and conducted through an entirely different type of activity . . . . After Eppolito retired from the New York City police department and moved to Las Vegas, he attempted a transition from the world of law enforcement to the world of entertainment. In pursuit of this goal, Eppolito established an ostensibly legitimate enterprise, DeAntone Productions, and began seeking investors in his screenplays, many of which were about the world of organized crime. According to documents admitted by the government, Eppolito was the president of this company and Caracappa a vice president. The final three racketeering acts were committed as a result of Eppolito's attempts to find investors for a particular film project: the money laundering grew out of Eppolito's agreement to accept funds from an investor described by government informant Steven Corso as a mob guy in Florida involved in a drug deal, and the narcotics charges arose from both defendants' arguable willingness to help Corso obtain drugs that would keep prospective investors happy. None of these acts displayed the sort of fee-for-services arrangement typified by the New York acts and alleged by the government to be the essence of the defendants' continuing enterprise. The government's attempts to rely on the nexus of organized crime to connect the New York and Nevada acts are unavailing, considering the significant differences between them. That Eppolito tangentially relied on his knowledge of, and prior association with, organized crime in his attempts to find investors for his new screenwriting endeavor is not surprising, nor is it in and of itself evidence that this enterprise was the same as the original one. A retired contractor who opens a delicatessen in his retirement may encourage his old employees and clients to buy their lunches at his new store, and time on job sites may have taught him what brand of pastrami those customers will prefer; that does not mean that he remains in the construction business. Eppolito I, 436 F.Supp.2d at 571-73 (at best emphasized in original) (other emphases ours). The court also rejected the government's alternative contention that prosecution of the RICO conspiracy count was timely because the members of the enterprise had agreed to maintain secrecy about the existence of the enterprise, their participation in it, and their prior crimes, and that that agreement continued until the date of their arrests. See id. at 573. Having concluded that judgments of acquittal should be entered in favor of each defendant on the RICO conspiracy count, the court also opined that, given the overwhelming evidence on that count that Eppolito and Caracappa were heinous criminals. . . guilty . . . of the most despicable crimes of violence and treachery, id. at 576, that evidence may have unfairly affected the jury's consideration of the other three counts of the Indictment. Accordingly, the court ruled that if its dismissal of the RICO conspiracy count were not overturned on appeal, Eppolito and Caracappa would be given a new trial on those other counts.