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Blake Coppotelli   [Download VCard]
Managing Director

Blake A. Coppotelli is a managing director with Freeh Group International Solutions, resident in the New York office.

Prior to joining the firm, he was a senior managing director with Kroll Associates Inc., advising public and private clients on public corruption, government, regulatory, and/or corporate investigations, financial and investigative due diligence, internal corporate controls and governance, and ethics policies. During his ten years at Kroll, his legal and investigative experience enabled him to be appointed to various independent ethics oversight positions by public and private clients and/or concerns, and to serve as an Independent Private Sector Inspector General on numerous high profile matters. His current practice concentrates in these areas, as well as in white collar criminal defense.

Prior to joining Kroll, for thirteen years, Mr. Coppotelli was an Assistant District Attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, ending the last four years of his tenure as chief of the Labor Racketeering Unit and Construction Industry Strike Force. Mr. Coppotelli also served as a senior investigative counsel advising other investigative assistant district attorneys on investigative strategies, legal issues and trial practice.

While chief, Mr. Coppotelli supervised the investigation into District Council 37, of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union. The investigation secured the convictions of more than twenty-five union officials and nine corporations for grand larceny, scheme to defraud, and bribery. Mr. Coppotelli also supervised the racketeering and anti-trust indictments of eleven members of the Lucchese crime family, including the family’s acting boss, two capos, eleven construction companies, and numerous union officials from Local 608 of the Northern Regional Council of the United States Brotherhood of Carpenters, Local 1 of the Builders and Allied Craftsmen, and Local 20 of the Laborers International Union. Mr. Coppotelli further supervised the investigation of New York State Senator Guy Velella for conspiracy to receive bribes for influencing the awarding of public contracts.

In addition to the above, Mr. Coppotelli directly handled the 1990s investigation into bid-rigging within the New York City interior construction industry, resulting in the commercial bribery convictions of six of the top ten metropolitan area interior general contracting companies, their principals, and over forty architects, designers, project consultants, building managers, and real estate brokers. Mr. Coppotelli also was responsible for the investigation and conviction of the State of New York Dormitory Authority’s chief of court projects, and his first assistant project manager, for laundering and stealing in excess of $500,000 from the authority through the rigging and inflation of numerous contracts on the Bronx Supreme Court, the Queens Supreme Court and Family Court, Staten Island Supreme Court, and the Manhattan Supreme Court buildings. Further, Mr. Coppotelli was the prosecutor who investigated the Fulton Fish Market, and secured the felony conviction of the head of International Fishmonger’s Association.