Frank Coppa obit

BREAKING NEWS: First Bonanno Mob Figure To Flip, Fmr. Skipper Frank Coppa Gone At 82, Cashes In Chips From WitSec

 

He was not on the list.

Coppa was a Sicilian-American gangster in the Bonanno crime family who was a close friend of Joseph Massino and Frank Lino and made large sums of money in stock fraud schemes. In 2002, Coppa became the first Bonanno made man to turn state's evidence.

Coppa was born in Manalapan Township, New Jersey. He graduated from high school and spent a few months in college before dropping out.

Coppa lived in New Jersey and Staten Island, but operated his criminal activities on the eastern edge of Bensonhurst and Williamsburg on the corner of Broadway and Kent in Brooklyn. This area included a low-income municipal housing project called Marlboro Houses, where he eventually became involved in drug trafficking.

Coppa acquired many assets, including parking garage leases, soft drink vending machine and coin-operated telephone contracts and a chain of rotisserie chicken restaurants. Through his wife and sons, Coppa owned a school bus company named Three Brothers. He used his influence to win a city contract to bus children with disabilities to and from school.

At age 19, Coppa was arrested for attempted burglary of a clothing store, but did not spend any time in prison.

Coppa began his serious criminal career selling stolen watches and furs from transport truck hijackings, grossing $20,000. In Bensonhurst he associated with the Colombo crime family and Genovese crime family before he eventually joined the Bonanno family. He elevated himself from a "sidewalk soldier" to a shady businessman. Coppa was one of the Bonanno family's biggest mobsters on Wall Street and is credited for practically inventing the pump-and-dump stock scheme.

In the early 1970s, Coppa first became involved in stock fraud schemes. Coppa and his associates bought stock in Tucker Drilling, a nearly worthless oil drilling company. Coppa bribed stockbrokers to sell the stock to the public at high prices. For brokers who did not cooperate in the scheme, Coppa employed threats and physical violence. When the stock price reached a high point, Coppa and his associates sold their stock holdings. The remaining investors lost their investments.

In 1977, boss Carmine Galante inducted Coppa into the Bonanno family in recognition of his ability to earn money.

In 1978, Coppa survived an assassination attempt. As he was entering his Mercedes-Benz, at the Bagel Nosh restaurant on Richmond Ave and Victory Blvd on Staten Island, a bomb detonated. Coppa escaped with third degree burns and shrapnel wounds to his face, chest and legs.

In 1979, Coppa was convicted for his role in the Tucker Drilling scam but successfully avoided a prison sentence.

After undercover FBI agent Donnie Brasco had his assignment ended in July 1981, Dominick Napolitano, who was one of the men responsible for bringing him into the family, on August 17, 1981, Frank Lino and Stefano Canone drove Napolitano to the house of Ronald Filocomo, a Bonanno family associate, for a meeting. Napolitano was greeted by Coppa, then thrown down the stairs to the house's basement by Lino and shot to death. Napolitano's body was discovered the following year.

During the 1980s, Coppa was indicted for income tax evasion for not declaring income received from his bus company. In 1992, Coppa was convicted and received several years in prison. In 1994, Coppa was released from prison.

By the late 1990s, Massino and Coppa had become close associates. Massino appreciated Coppa because his stock schemes netted large amounts of money for the Bonanno family. During this period, Massino and Coppa went to France with their wives to celebrate Massino's birthday. Coppa paid for the entire trip, which included stays at expensive hotels and meals at classy restaurants.

On March 3, 2000, Coppa was indicted on stock fraud charges. From 1993 to 1996, Coppa and other Bonanno associates collaborated with brokers at two defunct stock firms, White Rock Partners and State Street Capital Markets, to drive up the price of some penny stocks. In 2002, Coppa was convicted and sentenced to seven years in federal prison.