Flipped Bonanno Captain dies in Florida while in witness protection
The first domino to fall in the Bonanno crime family was Frank Coppa, a corpulent capo who once survived a car-bomb attack and procured fried chicken for hungry hit men before an execution.
In 2002, he was serving time for securities fraud when he was indicted on racketeering and extortion charges. Facing an even longer prison sentence, he notified the F.B.I. that he wanted to cooperate with the government.
It was the first time a Bonanno member had flipped, violating the mafia’s solemn oath of loyalty, Omertà .
Mr. Coppa’s decision to cooperate with federal prosecutors, knowingly putting his life at risk, led at least 10 other members to do the same and ultimately helped the government convict Joseph Massino, the Bonanno boss, of seven murder charges and immobilize his mafia family.
“Coppa’s cooperation was the first major development in a series of prosecutions which, during their course, resulted in the indictment of virtually every high-ranking member of the Bonanno family,” Amy Busa, a federal prosecutor, wrote in court papers. “Coppa’s cooperation with the government has been truly historic.”
In return, Mr. Coppa was sentenced to time served and entered the federal government’s witness protection program. He died on Oct. 17, 2023, at his home in Sarasota, Fla., according to a death certificate obtained by The New York Times. No cause was listed. He was 82.
His death was first reported last month by “The Sit Down: A Crime History Podcast,” a popular show for aficionados of mafia history.
After Mr. Coppa decided to flip, F.B.I. agents took him to the bureau’s training facility in Quantico, Va., where he spent two weeks explaining the inner workings of the Bonanno family and narrating gruesome details of multiple murders, including two he helped set up.
In 2004, he testified in federal court against Mr. Massino, a close friend whose own rotundity was sneered at in the tabloid newspapers that were feasting on details spilling out of the trial, in Brooklyn.
The Daily News noted that Mr. Coppa had “turned over personal photos of the two fatsos vacationing together in Europe.” The New York Post columnist Steve Dunleavy called Mr. Coppa a “mob turncoat” who “rolled over like a circus dog on a raft of wiseguys.”
Mr. Coppa, known as Big Frank, spent two days on the witness stand describing a world seemingly drawn from a Mario Puzo novel, with characters nicknamed Bobby Wheelchairs, Sally Bagel, Gene the Hat, Patty from the Bronx and Little Nicky Eyeglasses.
At times, it got testy.
“How did you force people to do things, Mr. Coppa?” Mr. Massino’s defense lawyer asked, according to the trial transcript. “You don’t look like such a tough guy.”
“I don’t?” Mr. Coppa replied.
The proceedings were also banal, harrowing and surreal — sometimes all at once.
One afternoon in 1978, Mr. Coppa testified, he left a bagel shop he had invested in and tried to get into his car.
“What happened?” a prosecutor asked.
“I got blown up,” Mr. Coppa said.
“How were you injured?” a prosecutor said.
“Severely,” Mr. Coppa said. “Blown apart.”
He spent several months in a hospital recovering. He suspected that the bomber was another underworld figure with whom he was having a dispute. Mr. Coppa sent several Bonanno members to kill the man. They shot him five times in his driveway in Staten Island. He survived.
A few months later, the man called Mr. Coppa.
“He was trying to see if I did it,” Mr. Coppa testified. “I told him, ‘Don’t worry about it, go about your life.’” He added, “I wasn’t sure if he did it, and I was sorry that I had him shot.”
Mr. Coppa also detailed his role in the death of Dominick Napolitano, a Bonanno member, known as Sony Black, who was executed in 1981 for unwittingly connecting the family with an undercover F. B.I agent, Joseph D. Pistone, who used the alias Donnie Brasco. Mr. Pistone later wrote a book about that experience and was played by Johnny Depp in “Donnie Brasco,” a 1997 film adaptation.
The night of Mr. Napolitano’s murder, Mr. Coppa testified, he had bought fried chicken for the hit men as they prepared for the execution, at a Bonanno member’s house in Queens.
It happened while Mr. Massino waited in a car nearby. Mr. Coppa, guarding the home’s front door, let Mr. Napolitano in for a prearranged meeting in the basement. Mr. Coppa testified that he heard three shots soon after they descended the stairs — one, then a pause, then two more. It turned out that one of the assassin’s guns had jammed. The other Bonanno associate finished the job.
“He died like a man,” Mr. Coppa testified.
Though he carried a .38-caliber revolver most of his life, Mr. Coppa was never accused of pulling the trigger in a murder. His toughness, especially when it came to doing time, was questionable. He acknowledged in court that when he went to prison for the first time, in 1992, he cried uncontrollably for days.
Among law enforcement officials, Mr. Coppa was known as a clever wise guy. He made millions of dollars for himself and the Bonanno family in pump-and-dump schemes, boosting the value of penny stocks to quickly turn a profit. He also shook down underworld figures outside the Bonanno family who were engaging in securities fraud.
“He was one of the smartest mob guys you’re ever going to meet,” a former F.B.I. agent involved in the case said in an interview on the condition of anonymity so that he could speak about the investigation. “He understood how to engineer these financial frauds. He was at a completely different level when it came to most of these guys.”
The former agent said he believed that Mr. Coppa had been remorseful.
“One of the reasons he cooperated is that I think he regretted his participation in the violent stuff when he was younger,” the official said. “He lived off that reputation for many years. But he was actually likable in a way.”
Frank Coppa was born on Sept. 11, 1941, in Brooklyn, according to his death certificate, which listed his parents as Michael Coppa and Marianna Mattera.
During his testimony, Mr. Coppa sketched out a blue-collar upbringing. He said his father was a stevedore. As a teenager, Frank waited tables and bagged groceries. His first arrest was when he was 19, charged with burglarizing a clothing store. He later drove school buses, he testified.
Mr. Coppa testified that he met Mr. Massino in 1977 at the Fulton Fish Market, in the Bronx, and that he became a soldier in the Bonanno family not long after, joining a criminal enterprise founded and ruled by Joseph Bonanno for more than three decades until the mid-1960s. The two men became close friends, even vacationing with their wives in Monte Carlo and Paris, where Mr. Massino bought Mr. Coppa rosary beads to carry in his wallet.
Mr. Massino was convicted in the 2004 trial and received two life sentences. Not long after, he decided to cooperate with the government, serving as a prosecution witness against other mafia figures. He was released into the witness protection program and died last year.
Details of Mr. Coppa’s life after working with the F.B.I. are unclear.
During Mr. Massino’s trial, Mr. Coppa said he hoped the government would let him keep about $2 million that he had stashed away, along with several homes and vehicles. It is believed that Mr. Coppa left the witness protection program years ago, when the depleted Bonanno crime family was no longer a threat to his life.
Public records listed him as residing in Sarasota in a high-rise condominium, which his wife, Marguerite Coppa, purchased in 2010 for $457,500, according to the deed.
Information about his survivors was not available.
While on the witness stand, Mr. Coppa testified about his induction into the Bonanno crime family. He was taken to an apartment in Brooklyn, where he waited in a bathroom as the leadership team inducted other new members in the living room.
Soon it was his turn. He joined hands with the leaders.
“What was the oath that you took?” the prosecutor asked.
“Oath of silence,” Mr. Coppa said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/26/nyregion/frank-coppa-dead.html
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