Mobster Murdered

In the early morning hours of Easter Sunday 1977, a well-known member of the Genovese crime family pulled up to a motel in Bridgewater, N.J. His name was John "Johnny Cokes" Lardiere -- and he was just coming home after five years behind bars. He knew he'd only be home for a mere 24-hours -- he'd been given a day long furlough to spend the holiday with his family. But what Johnny Cokes didn't know was that rumors had been spreading among the crime family while he was locked up. Rumors that he was potentially turning against the mob, and that he'd disrespected the boss.

When Lardiere got out of his car, he turned to see a man standing in front of him with a .22 automatic pistol, complete with a silencer. The man squeezed the trigger, but the gun jammed. Lardiere was both amused and annoyed by the man who'd come to carry out a mob hit with a busted weapon. He allegedly uttered the words that would later make the hit infamous among New Jersey mob families in the area.

Lardiere, a mobster through and through, displayed his tough guy attitude, saying, "What're you gonna do now, tough guy?"

Rather than respond, cops say the hitman showed Johnny Cokes what he planned to do -- by leaning down, pulling up his pant leg, and removing a .38 revolver from an ankle holster. The man fired two shots at Lardiere -- the first stunning him, the second knocking him to the ground. And then, cops say for good measure, the man shot him two more times.

When police arrived at the crime scene, they knew immediately it was a mob hit. The shooter had left behind his weapons and a hat. But authorities still didn't know who'd killed Johnny Cokes -- and the investigation would remain that way until nearly twenty years later.

A Big Break

The break came in 1996 when another mobster we'll call "Tommy," who'd been arrested on murder and extortion charges, decided to cooperate with authorities. Tommy told police Lardiere's killer was Michael Coppola, a man who at the time of the murder was an up and coming member of the Genovese organization. Carrying out the hit on Lardiere would have been just the kind of "work" he'd need to do to prove himself to the crime family.

Police had suspected Coppola was involved with the murder, but could never even begin trying to prove it. But now, with Tommy serving as an informant to authorities, police could finally work toward proving Coppola guilty of murder.

Tommy told police he'd heard the entire story of Lardiere's murder straight from the killer's mouth. He told cops they'd been at a party together when Tommy questioned Coppola about the hit, repeating the now-infamous words "What're you gonna do now, tough guy?" Tommy says Coppola then revealed details of the entire hit -- something mobsters traditionally don't do, and shouldn't. After all, that's what eventually caused Coppola's demise.

Back To The Evidence

Authorities also knew the mobster's word would hold very little weight in a courtroom, so they decided to take another look at the evidence -- this time with Coppola in mind. That's when they realized hair samples had been preserved from the hat found at the scene of the crime. Though DNA wasn't used much in 1977 to solve murder cases -- things had changed, and having DNA now was the key to cracking the cold case.

Would DNA Prove The Mobster Did It?

The hair was sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, where DNA was successfully extracted. Now all they needed was a match. When a judge issued a court order for Michael Coppola to provide a saliva sample on August 8, 1996, authorities hoped they'd finally have their proof. But cops say Coppola went on the run. 

Yet the DNA evidence would not be enough to convict Coppola. He was arrested on March 9, 2007 in New York City. On July 21, 2009 a jury found him not guilty of the murder of Lardiere. Coppola's attorney, Henry Mazurek, successfully argued that though the DNA found at the crime scene did match Coppola, it also matched 11 million other white men. 

Coppola was convicted of two racketeering charges. The first included the extortion of ILA Local 1235, one of the International Longshoremen's Association's largest local, for thirty years. The second conviction was for possessing false identification during his eleven years as a fugitive.

Reputed Mob Boss Charged With Motel Murder

After ten years on the run, Michael Coppola's days as a fugitive ended on the mean streets of New York City.

On March 9, 2007, agents from the FBI's Genovese Family Squad and investigators from the New Jersey Department of Criminal Justice were closing in on the hunt for Coppola.  Based on a tip from an informant, they confirmed that Coppola was on the west side of Manhattan, and began to canvass the neighborhood.

Investigators spotted a man they believed to be Coppola going into a health food store and waited for him to come out. As he left, one of the N.J. detectives asked the man if he was indeed Coppola. He admitted that he was, and he was taken into custody.

Prosecutors say Michael Coppola was finally forced to give a DNA sample in the case of a murdered mob associate.

A judge first gave the order for Coppola to provide his DNA back in 1996, but Coppola skipped a court hearing that year and was on the run until March 2007, according to authorities.

Prosecutors said they would use the DNA sample to compare against evidence from the crime scene where Johnny "Coca Cola" Lardiere was found dead.

In November 2008, Coppola was charged with the crime, but pleaded not guilty. In July 2009, he was acquitted of the killing, but was convicted of racketeering.