Jurors in the “mob cop” trial kicked off deliberations yesterday by asking to rehear testimony in which a Mafia boss allegedly asks an underling for help in nailing turncoats – and is offered the services of two rogue detectives.
After two hours of discussion, the Brooklyn panel sent out a note to review testimony from Burton Kaplan, the reputed middleman for disgraced ex-cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa and Luchese crime-family underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso.
Jurors filed into a federal courtroom to hear a court reporter read back Kaplan’s account of how Casso asked for help in tracking down the men who unsuccessfully tried to whack him in 1986.
One of Casso’s targeted victims was Jimmy Hydell, whom Eppolito and Caracappa allegedly later pulled over under the guise of a traffic stop. They allegedly stuffed him in the trunk of a car and served him up to the Mafioso to be tortured and executed.
The jurors then quickly retreated into the deliberation room and sent out only two more notes before calling it a day.
One was to ask about audio tapes that another turncoat, John “Otto” Heidel, recorded while acting as an undercover rat for the feds. Heidel is among the eight men that the former cops allegedly helped Casso kill while on a $4,000-a-month retainer for the mob.
The other note was a request for creamer to put in their coffee.