Ex-N.Y. officer faces tax charges

A former New York police detective who has been accused of facilitating eight mob slayings appeared in federal court in Las Vegas on Monday to face charges that he and his wife filed false income tax returns.

Louis Eppolito, 57, appeared before federal magistrate Peggy Leen to hear the charges against him. Leen scheduled the next hearing in the case for Thursday.

The U.S. attorney's office in Nevada indicted Eppolito and his wife, Frances Eppolito, on Jan. 1, 2006. The indictment accused the Eppolitos of filing false 1040 tax form returns in 2000, 2001 and 2002 by failing to declare their full income.

Eppolito and another New York detective, Stephen Caracappa, 64, were accused of working for the Luchese crime family while serving as officers with the New York Police Department.

A jury in 2006 found the pair guilty of participating in at least eight mob-related killings. However, later that year, a federal judge overturned their convictions because the statute of limitations had run out.

Both men still face money-laundering and drug charges and were ordered to remain in custody to face those charges.

Eppolito, who wrote the 1992 book "Mafia Cop," and Caracappa were arrested in Las Vegas in 2005. Both men had lived in Southern Nevada for about a decade at the time of their arrest.

Anthony Eppolito, Eppolito's 24-year-old son, was arrested in Las Vegas in 2005 on charges of distributing methamphetamine.