2 charges tossed

The feds have quietly dropped two murder charges against reputed Mafia cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, the Daily News has learned.

Sources familiar with the government's strategy insist the evidence against the ex-NYPD detectives in those gangland killings is solid.

But a decision was made to streamline the indictment after Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein warned prosecutors last June that he would not allow them to call 100 witnesses to testify as they had planned.

"Obviously a decision had to be made," one source said.

Deleted from the racketeering indictment is the May 1990 slaying of James Bishop, the former leader of Painters Union Local 37, whose cooperation with the Manhattan district attorney's office allegedly was leaked to the mob by Eppolito and Caracappa. He was found riddled with bullets in his car in Queens.

Also dropped from the case is the 1991 slaying of the late John Gotti's former bodyguard, Bartolomeo (Bobby) Borriello, who was gunned down in front of his Brooklyn home. His address allegedly was given to the mob by the cops.