[2] Coppa lived in New Jersey and Staten Island, but operated his criminal activities on the eastern edge of Bensonhurst and Willamsburg on the corner of Broadway and Kent Avenue in Brooklyn.
[3] Coppa acquired many assets, including parking garage leases, soft drink vending machine and coin-operated telephone contracts, and a chain of rotisserie chicken restaurants.
[5] Coppa began his serious criminal career selling stolen watches and furs from transport truck hijackings, grossing $20,000.
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.
As he was entering his Mercedes-Benz, at the Bagel Nosh restaurant on Richmond Avenue and Victory Boulevard on Staten Island, a bomb detonated.
Therein on August 17, 1981, Frank Lino and Stefano Canone drove Napolitano to the house of Ronald Filocomo, a Bonanno family associate, for a meeting.
In October 2002, having served several months on his recent stock fraud conviction, Coppa was indicted again on racketeering charges of extortion against Barry Weinberg, a Bonanno business associate.
To avoid prosecution on his own criminal charges, Weinberg secretly recorded conversations for law enforcement in which Coppa pressed him for extortion payments.
[12] Facing charges that would have all but assured he would die in prison if convicted, Coppa decided to become a government witness, later declaring that, "I didn't want to do no more time."