"There has been no doubt, and there is no doubt, that the murders and other crimes were proven without a reasonable doubt," Weinstein said.

Yet the judge delayed imposing their prison sentences until he rules on legal motions to throw out their convictions - giving Eppolito and Caracappa some slight hope as they went back to the cramped cell they share at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Henoch said a life term was the only appropriate sentence for the defendants who participated in eight gangland murders while on the payroll of the Luchese crime family - and remain "unrepentant and remorseless and, perhaps by a higher power, unforgiven."

The defendants sat stone-faced as five family members of murder victims blasted the corrupt ex-detectives and urged the judge to give them the maximum penalty. When Eppolito was addressing the court, he was challenged by a bearded man who stood up in the packed spectator gallery.

"Remember me, Mr. Eppolito? The guy you put away for 19 years?" bellowed Barry Gibbs, who served nearly two decades in prison for murder until state prosecutors developed evidence last year that Eppolito had framed him. "I had a family, too. Remember what you did to my family, huh?" Gibbs said as U.S. marshals hustled him out of the courtroom. "Remember me?"

Eppolito said he didn't recognize Gibbs and resumed his rambling defense of himself, even inviting the victims' relatives to visit him behind bars so he could plead his case directly to them.

The person to persuade remains Weinstein, who will hold a June 23 hearing on whether to vacate the convictions. Lawyers for the Mafia cops will argue the statute of limitations for the racketeering charge had expired, and that trial attorneys Edward Hayes and Bruce Cutler botched the case.

Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, had told members of their own families not to attend the sentencing. Eppolito's son from his first marriage, Louis Jr., was sitting in the second row, and looked down when his father only mentioned having three children with his second wife.

Eppolito looked ghostly pale and had regrown a goatee. He appeared to have shed much weight since his last court appearance a month ago. Caracappa was his usual stoic self but struggled to maintain his composure when his lawyer referred to portions of a letter written to the judge by his brother, Dominick Caracappa.

Caracappa declined to make a statement, but Eppolito - who had a bit part in the film "GoodFellas" - was eager to speak.

"I know the feeling of every family here today, I know how they feel inside their gut," he said. "I would invite [the victims' family members] to visit me in jail. ... I think I would prove to them I didn't hurt anybody ever. If I can't convince you, then I'll apologize."

Outside Brooklyn Federal Court, Gibbs was asked what Eppolito will experience in prison. "Every day in jail is like a million years," he said. "Psychologically it's going to break you down, like it did to me."