# Inmate tells of plot to frame ex-NY officers



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO. STAFF WRITER

Copyright 2006 Newsday, Inc.

A federal prisoner who is a reputed associate of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood has surfaced to claim that a former mob boss plotted to pin a number of homicides on the "Mafia Cops," according to court records released yesterday.

Raymond Oechsle, who is a federal witness being held in the infamous "Super Max" high-security prison in Florence, Colo., said in a letter to defense attorneys that ex-Luchese crime family acting boss Anthony "Gas Pipe" Casso carried out a scheme while in the prison to implicate two ex-NYPD detectives in a "bunch of murders."

Oechsle said he learned first-hand of the plot because he stood outside the mobster boss' cell while Casso engaged in telephone conversations over a four-day period at the Florence facility, according to court records. Oechsle said Casso used leverage over an FBI official to get special telephone privileges to facilitate the alleged scheme.

"Tony and his soldier were scheming on dumping a bunch of murders on the two NYPD detectives that use to feed Anthony Casso information," said Oechsle in his letter.

The letter and court records didn't name the former detectives but they apparently refer to Louis Eppolito, 57, and Stephen Caracappa, 64, who are to go on trial next week on charges they worked as hit men for the Luchese crime family.

Oechsle sent his letter to Mark H. Donatelli, a Santa Fe, N.M., defense attorney who forwarded it to attorneys Bruce Cutler and Edward Hayes, who represent Eppolito and Caracappa, respectively.

Hayes sent the Oechsle letter to Brooklyn Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Henoch along with a request that prosecutors help set up a phone or video link so that Oechsle might be interviewed. Yesterday, Hayes said prosecutors were looking into trying to facilitate the interview.

Casso, who is serving a life sentence, had cooperated with the government in the past but federal officials have never used him at trial. Prosecutors said they won't be calling Casso as a witness in the "Mafia Cops" case, so it was unclear late yesterday how useful Oechsle's information would be to the defense.

Hayes said in his letter that Oechsle has been a government witness and has information that the federal Bureau of Prisons maintains a secret "rat school" where government informers are put together to get their stories straight.

In a telephone interview with Newsday, Donatelli said he came across Oechsle when the inmate was a witness against his client in a 2003 federal case in Illinois. That case resulted in a hung jury, said Donatelli.

March 3, 2006








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