A father accused of fatally shooting his ex-wife and her new partner while they slept in their million-dollar Long island home ranted about his hatred of gender pronouns in a MAGA-fueled screed only hours earlier.
Daniel Coppola, 50, was arrested on Thursday on two murder charges, after Kelly Coppola, also 50, and her partner of almost two years, Kenneth Pohlman, 53, were found gunned down in their St. James home shortly before midnight on Wednesday.
On Friday morning, DailyMail.com obtained the first photos of Coppola after his arrest, as he was marched out of jail to appear in court wearing socks and no shoes, with a small wound visible on his forehead.
At his arraignment, Coppola was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and is being held without bail. He is under suicide watch and faces up to 50 years to life in prison. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Coppola, a father of one, lost his temper on Facebook hours before the alleged killings, complaining about the use of gender pronouns in email signatures.
‘Maybe I should say in my signature line trump/him,’ he wrote, followed by the hashtag ‘#MAGA2024.’
‘He/she her/him what a bunch of f***ing wackos like I need this in a corporate email. I don’t give a s**t about your orientation why do I need it in your signature line??? Do your job as a guy.women trans etc,’ Coppola said in the lengthy rant.
‘I’m done with this s**t and f**k u all that think this in [sic] normal can’t wait for the blowback on this. I’m done bitting [sic] my god d**n tongue. Grow up u attention grabbing pr***s.’
Coppola said he’d had a conversation with a ‘very close friend’ who questioned why he was so bothered by it, and he’d argued that it ‘goes against my core values.’
Police allege Coppola made a call Wednesday to his 15-year-old daughter, who was inside the home with her mom, to warn her to get out of the house.
‘The daughter was in the house and he reached out to her and told her to get out of the house,’ Detective Lt. Kevin Breyer said at a Thursday press conference.
‘He picked the girl up, put her in his car, committed the murders, drove her from there… As he’s driving her, she’s communicating with friends via text saying, “I don’t know what my father did. I don’t know how my mother is.”
‘They try to reach out to the mother, can’t get in touch with the mother, they call 911,’ he said.
Coppola was arrested and was reportedly being held for mental evaluation after making suicidal statements.
He and his ex-wife had recently gone through a bitter divorce.
At the arraignment, Assistant District Attorney Eric Aboulafia said investigators found a typewritten letter in Coppola’s home detailing his plan in ‘excruciating detail’ that clearly showed his ‘homicidal rage.’
In the letter, he blamed his ex-wife for his financial woes and said he also planned to kill the attorneys involved in their divorce, including his own – with bullets marked for each.
Outside of the courthouse, devastated family members sobbed. One was so overcome by emotion that she fell to the ground and had to be helped back to her feet.
Kenneth’s heartbroken parents and brother, Tom, were among those in the courtroom on Friday for the brief hearing.
Tom shouted at Coppola as he was brought into the courtroom wearing prison scrubs. Other relatives burst into tears.
‘My dad would give you the shirt off of his back even if he never knew you,’ Kenneth’s eldest daughter, Brianna Pohlman, told DailyMail.com outside the courthouse.
The 25-year-old explained that her father ‘did everything’ for her and her siblings, after their mother died of cancer when Brianna was 7.
‘Now me and my brother and sister are parentless,’ she wept.
Kelly and Kenneth shared a six-bedroom, four-bathroom home worth $1.1million in affluent Suffolk Count. They’d been dating for more than a year, friends said.
The couple had recently taken their blended family on holiday, and had celebrated Kelly’s 50th birthday with friends.
Kelly’s daughter with Coppola had been living with her mother and Kenneth, Brianna said, after Kelly ‘came in and made that house a home for us.’
‘She is my sister. She is my family,’ Brianna said, adding that she ‘immediately loved’ both her and Kelly.