John Guarneri, 31, of Pleasant Plains, a police lieutenant with the city Sanitation Department, was arrested and charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, according to a federal complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court. Guarneri was also identified by law enforcement officials as the nephew of "Mafia Cop" Louis Eppolito, the former NYPD detective convicted in 2006 of taking part in eight mob murders. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that Eppolito and ex-partner Stephen Caracappa, formerly of Great Kills, can be sentenced on a racketeering conspiracy conviction. According to Brooklyn defense attorney Ken Montgomery, Guarneri was held yesterday pending the completion of a bail package.
"I don't think he is a major player," Montgomery said outside court. Guarneri joined the Department of Sanitation in April 2000, according to an agency spokesman.
Sanitation spokeswoman Kathy Dawkins said Guarneri was considered absent without leave yesterday when he didn't show up for work. The scene is a far cry from 2005, when Guarneri was honored for on-the-job heroics for saving a man from being beaten on a Brooklyn street. On Aug. 9, 2005, while on routine patrol in Brooklyn, Guarneri noticed a 68-year-old man being spat on, slapped and assaulted with a baseball bat; he subdued and held the assailant until police arrived and arrested him.
According to the FBI, the cocaine was kept in the basement of the Sikorski Meat Market, a popular Eastern European specialty store on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. Employee Andrzej Filipkowski, 40, was charged with using the Sikorski market as a base of operations for drug sales. According to the federal complaint, Filipkowski called the cocaine "hot kielbasa" and distributed it to other buyers.
The term for Slavic sausage was used by drug dealers to specify the 80 percent pure cocaine that federal investigators say is in demand throughout the metropolitan area.
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