Frank Coppa, first Bonanno mafia family member to turn over, dies at 82 – DNyuz

The first domino to fall in the Bonanno crime family was Frank Coppa, an overweight officer who once survived a car bombing and bought fried chicken for hungry hitmen before they were executed.

In 2002, he was serving a sentence for securities fraud when he was indicted on racketeering and extortion charges. He faced an even longer prison sentence and told the FBI he wanted to cooperate with the government.

It was the first time a Bonanno member had crossed the line and violated the Mafia’s solemn oath of loyalty, Omertà.

Mr. Coppa’s decision to cooperate with federal prosecutors, knowingly endangering his own life, led at least 10 other members to do the same. Ultimately, it led the government to convict Bonanno boss Joseph Massino on seven counts of murder and cripple his Mafia family.

“Coppa’s cooperation was the first major development in a series of prosecutions that, as they unfolded, resulted in the indictment of virtually every high-ranking member of the Bonanno family,” Amy Busa, a federal prosecutor, wrote in court documents. “Coppa’s cooperation with the government is truly historic.”

In return, Mr. Coppa was sentenced to time already served and placed in the federal witness protection program. He died on Oct. 17, 2023, at his home in Sarasota, Florida, 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 mob history buffs.

After Coppa decided to go crazy, FBI agents took him to the bureau’s training center in Quantico, Virginia. There, he spent two weeks explaining the inner workings of the Bonanno family and recounting gruesome details about multiple murders, including two he helped orchestrate.

In 2004, he testified in federal court against Mr. Massino, a close friend whose obesity had been ridiculed by tabloids, which feasted on details that emerged during the Brooklyn trial.

The Daily News noted that Mr. Coppa had “turned over personal photographs of the two fatties vacationing together in Europe.” New York Post columnist Steve Dunleavy called Mr. Coppa a “Mafia traitor” who “turned somersault like a circus dog on a raft full of smart guys.”

Mr. Coppa, better known as Big Frank, spent two days on the witness stand and described a world that seemed to have been taken from a Mario Puzo novel, with characters with nicknames such as Bobby Wheelchairs, Sally Bagel, Gene the Hat, Patty from the Bronx and Little Nicky Eyeglasses.

Sometimes things got a bit intense.

“How did you force people to do things, Mr. Coppa?” Mr. Massino’s attorney asked, according to the trial transcript. “You don’t seem like a tough guy.”

“I don’t do that?” replied Mr. Coppa.

The events were banal, harrowing and surreal – sometimes even 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?” asked a prosecutor.

“I was blown up,” Mr. Coppa said.

“How were you injured?” a prosecutor asked.

“Seriously,” said Mr. Coppa. “Torn apart.”

He spent several months in a hospital recovering. He suspected the bomber was another underworld figure with whom he had a beef. Mr. Coppa sent several Bonanno members to kill the man. They shot him five times in his driveway on 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, go on with your life.'” He added: “I wasn’t sure if he did it, and I felt bad that I had him shot.”

Mr. Coppa also described his role in the death of Dominick Napolitano, a Bonanno member known as Sony Black who was executed in 1981 for unwittingly putting the family in touch with an undercover FBI agent, Joseph D. Pistone, who used the alias Donnie Brasco. Mr. Pistone later wrote a book about the experience and was portrayed by Johnny Depp in the 1997 film adaptation of “Donnie Brasco.”

The night of Napolitano’s murder, Coppa testified, he had bought fried chicken for the hitmen as they prepared for the execution at the home of a Bonanno member in Queens.

It happened while Mr. Massino waited in a car nearby. Mr. Coppa, who was guarding the front door of the house, let Mr. Napolitano in for a prearranged meeting in the basement. Mr. Coppa testified that he heard three shots shortly after they came down the stairs — one, then a pause, then two more. It turned out that one of the killer’s guns had jammed. The other Bonanno associate finished the job.

“He died like a man,” Mr. Coppa testified.

Although he carried a .38-caliber revolver most of his life, Mr. Coppa was never charged with pulling the trigger in a murder. His toughness, especially when it came to serving time, was questionable. He admitted in court that when he first went to prison in 1992, he cried uncontrollably for days.

Among law enforcement officials, Mr. Coppa was known as a smart, smart guy. He made millions of dollars for himself and the Bonanno family through pump-and-dump schemes, inflating the value of penny stocks to make a quick profit. He also shook down underworld figures outside the Bonanno family who were involved in securities fraud.

“He was one of the smartest mobsters you’ll ever meet,” a former FBI agent who worked on the case said in an interview on condition of anonymity so he could talk about the investigation. “He understood how to pull off these financial frauds. He was on a whole other level when it came to most of these guys.”

The former officer said he believed Mr. Coppa was remorseful.

“One of the reasons he cooperated is I think he regretted his involvement in the violent cases when he was younger,” the official said. “He lived off that reputation for years. But he was actually kind of nice in a way.”

Frank Coppa was born on September 11, 1941 in Brooklyn. According to his death certificate, his parents were Michael Coppa and Marianna Mattera.

During his testimony, Mr. Coppa described a working-class upbringing. He said his father was a dockworker. As a teenager, Frank waited tables and bagged groceries. His first arrest was at 19, accused of breaking into a clothing store. He later drove school buses, he testified.

Mr. Coppa testified that he met Mr. Massino at the Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx in 1977 and that he soon afterward became a soldier in the Bonanno family, joining a criminal enterprise founded and run by Joseph Bonanno for more than three decades, until the mid-1960s. The two men became close friends and even vacationed with their wives in Monte Carlo and Paris, where Mr. Massino bought Mr. Coppa’s rosaries to keep in his wallet.

Mr. Massino was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to two life sentences. Shortly thereafter, he decided to cooperate with the government and served as a prosecution witness against other mob figures. He was released into the witness protection program and died last year.

No details are known about Mr. Coppa’s life after his cooperation with the FBI.

During Mr. Massino’s trial, Mr. Coppa said he hoped the government would let him keep about $2 million he had stashed away, along with several homes and vehicles. Mr. Coppa is believed to have left the witness protection program years ago, when the decimated Bonanno crime family no longer posed a threat to his life.

Public records show he lived in a high-rise apartment in Sarasota that his wife, Marguerite Coppa, bought in 2010 for $457,500, deeds show.

There is no information available about his survivors.

While on the stand, Mr. Coppa testified about his initiation into the Bonanno crime family. He was taken to a Brooklyn apartment, where he waited in a bathroom while the leadership team initiated other new members in the living room.

Soon it was his turn. He joined the leaders.

“What was the oath you took?” the prosecutor asked.

“Oath of silence,” said Mr. Coppa.

The story Frank Coppa, the first Bonanno mobster to turn heel, dies at 82 first appeared on the New York Times.