{"id":7470,"date":"2017-05-15T06:21:50","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T10:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=7470"},"modified":"2017-05-15T06:21:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T10:21:50","slug":"brooklyn-man-jailed-1980-murder-seeks-new-trial-learning-arrested-mob-cop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/05\/15\/brooklyn-man-jailed-1980-murder-seeks-new-trial-learning-arrested-mob-cop\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn man jailed for 1980 murder seeks new trial after learning he was arrested by mob cop"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY Rocco Parascandola<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

A Brooklyn man doing 25 years to life for the murder of a cabbie says he suffered in silence \u2014 and innocence \u2014 until he found out the detective who busted him moonlighted as a Mafia hit man.\u00a0 Paul Clark had no idea who notorious Mob Cop Stephen Caracappa<\/a> was until his lawyers, James Henning and Craig Phemister, dug into his case and unearthed the rogue detective\u2019s name.\u00a0 The discovery sparked a hope in the 54-year-old Clark that he might finally walk out of prison free, and vindicated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Wow!\u2019\u201d Clark told the Daily News in an interview at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Beekman, Dutchess County. \u201cThis is unbelievable. Here you have a guy who is 10 times worse than me. And I\u2019m stuck in here because of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

NYPD cop who worked as mob hitman dies in prison<\/a><\/p>\n

Clark has been behind bars more than three decades, but until late 2015 he had no idea that the cop who helped put him away was so dirty. Caracappa and his partner, Lou Eppolito, were busted in 2005 and later convicted of committing eight murders for the Luchese crime family.<\/p>\n

\n
\"NYC
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Paul Clark speaks about his case inside the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Beekman, N.Y. on May 4. <\/strong>(Andrew Savulich\/New York Daily News)<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Clark remembers Caracappa as the ruthless detective who arrested him in the April 1980 shooting death of cabbie Oswen Fraser on Jay St. in downtown Brooklyn. The taxi driver, 60, died in what appeared to be a botched robbery.<\/p>\n

By the time Clark crossed paths with Caracappa, he was already imprisoned for a murder he admits he did commit in his East Flatbush neighborhood. Clark, 18, shot a 17-year-old, Keith Thomas, at a block party four months after Fraser was killed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0But he did not, he told Caracappa, kill Fraser. Clark told the cop he was with his family in the apartment he shared with his mother and other relatives.<\/div>\n

Last of NYPD ‘Mafia Cops’ lawsuits finally settled<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI was home, asleep,\u201d Clark remembered saying. \u201cI don\u2019t live around that area, I don\u2019t have friends in that area \u2014 nothing. He was callous.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Printed.;
\n
Former NYPD Detective Stephen Caracappa (l.) was convicted of committing eight murders for the Lucchese crime family. He died in federal prison on April 8 at age 75. (DeCrescenzo,Neil)<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t want to hear what I had to say.\u201d Now, Clark hopes to be heard. His lawyers plan to file a motion Monday asking that Clark\u2019s conviction be set aside so he can get a new trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the evidence in this case came from a detective who was a serial killer for the Mafia,\u201d Henning said. \u201cThat alone is enough to warrant a new trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there is much more, the lawyers said \u2014 most notably the troubling inconsistencies provided by witness Veronique Dowie, an NYPD office worker who testified at Clark\u2019s 1984 trial.<\/p>\n

NYC reaches settlements with survivors of Mafia Cop victims<\/a><\/p>\n

Curiously, the police file for the Fraser murder is missing, according to the lawyers from the Napoli Shkolnik firm and the Brooklyn district attorney\u2019s office. But Henning and Phemister pieced together a chunk of the case based on documents from the district attorney\u2019s file.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Exported.;\"
\n
Ex-New York City cop Louis Eppolito (r.) with his partner Stephen Caracappa in an undated photo taken in the 63 Precinct in Brooklyn. (Costanza, Sam)<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Dowie, who worked a midnight shift at a warrants office in lower Manhattan, was heading home after 4 a.m. As she pulled up near her building, a yellow cab sped past her in reverse, jumped the sidewalk and crashed into a fence bordering a small cemetery near the Cathedral Basilica of St. James, she told police at the time.<\/p>\n

Fraser was dead behind the wheel. But many details of her account, including the number of suspects, what the gunman did after getting out of the cab, what he was wearing and what he looked like, are different from what other witnesses saw \u2014 and changed from the time of the shooting to her testimony at trial.<\/p>\n

Caracappa got involved in the investigation in September 1980. In a pretrial hearing, he testified that when he met Dowie in 1982 she claimed to have reported to police six months earlier that she\u2019d seen a wanted photo of Clark that was distributed after the block party shooting.<\/p>\n

New York settles another Mafia Cop suit for $5M<\/a><\/p>\n

She realized, Caracappa said, that Clark had also killed Fraser.<\/p>\n

\n
\"NYC
\n
Paul Clark is incarcerated inside the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Beekman, N.Y. He has been behind bars for more than 30 years. (Andrew Savulich\/New York Daily News)<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

But Clark\u2019s lawyers said there is no record of any such report. They\u2019re also suspicious that Caracappa didn\u2019t bother with the other witnesses and decided he could lock Dowie into a story that would stand up in court.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer insistence on things that didn\u2019t happen reeks of coercion,\u201d Henning said. \u201cAnd he closed up shop as soon as he got Veronique Dowie. As soon as she came in with the wanted poster, before she\u2019s even viewing photographic arrays, he\u2019s calling up the DA\u2019s office, saying, \u2018Let\u2019s do a lineup with this guy, Paul Clark.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cNo followup investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conviction review unit for the Brooklyn DA\u2019s office has been reviewing Clark\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

\n
\"NYC
\n
Paul Clark’s lawyer, James Henning, said a new trial is warranted because all the evidence came from a cop who was a hitman for the Mafia. (Andrew Savulich\/New York Daily News)<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The NYPD, meanwhile, didn\u2019t answer questions about what steps it took to review the cases of Caracappa and Eppolito after they were busted.<\/p>\n

Dowie died in June 1991 at age 47. Caracappa died in a federal prison in North Carolina on April 8. He was 75.<\/p>\n

Clark, who was sentenced to 331\/3 years to life for the block party murder, could conceivably be free on parole now if not for the Fraser conviction.<\/p>\n

If he does get out, waiting at home will be the woman he married in prison \u2014 they met when she was visiting another inmate \u2014 a 36-year-old daughter from an earlier relationship, who was born shortly after he was first convicted, and his mother, whose dream is to live long enough to see him walk through the front door of her Crown Heights apartment.<\/p>\n

\n
\"NYC
\n
Barbara Willis, 80, speaks about her son, Paul Clark, on May 9. She said her dream is to see him walk through the front door of her Crown Heights apartment. (Debbie Egan-Chin\/New York Daily News)<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI hope and pray,\u201d said Clark\u2019s mom, Barbara Willis, 80. \u201cI\u2019ve been praying every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Clark says he\u2019s moved past his rage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was angry for a long time,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m a man of faith now. I\u2019ve got to forgive.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source\u00a0 nydailynews.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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BY Rocco Parascandola A Brooklyn man doing 25 years to life for the murder of a cabbie says he suffered in silence \u2014 and innocence \u2014 until he found out the detective who busted him […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":7474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[3497,3495,3496],"class_list":{"0":"post-7470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-lou-eppolito","10":"tag-mob-cop","11":"tag-stephen-caracappa","12":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7470"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7480,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470\/revisions\/7480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}