An ex-con with ties to Balkan organized crime and the Gambino crime family pleaded guilty to trying to bribe a juror in the drug trafficking trial of former heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic.
Afrim Kupa, 53, of Staten Island, became the third suspect to plead guilty in the plot — which derailed Gogic’s trial last November and led to the disqualification of his defense lawyers.
Kupa pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court Tuesday to obstruction of justice, and could face between 10 to 12 and a half years behind bars, based on federal sentencing guidelines.
His co-defendants, fellow Staten Islanders Valmir Krasniqi, 35, and Mustafa Fteja, 54, pleaded guilty earlier this year.
“These defendants admitted they obstructed a federal criminal trial in Brooklyn by attempting to bribe a juror, which strikes at the very heart of the rule of law,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said Tuesday.
Gogic was set to go on trial in late November on charges he played a key role in an operation that used commercial cargo ships to move more than 20 tons of cocaine from Colombia to Europe through U.S. ports.
But the day the trial was supposed to start, federal prosecutors announced a shocker — one of the jurors had been approached with a $100,000 bribe, and three men had been arrested for the effort.
At prosecutors’ request, Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Joan Azrack dismissed the entire jury and postponed the trial.
An investigation led to more troubling revelations — Gogic had protected documents in his jail cell, and he and his associates had tried to tamper with at least three witnesses, the feds said in court filings.
Azrack last month removed Gogic’s defense lawyer, Joseph Corozzo Jr. — the son of the late, reputed consigliere of the Gambino crime family — and Corozzo’s firm from the case.
The jury plot took off the weekend before opening statements were expected to begin, after the conspirators learned that Fteja — who worked at Positano, a Bay Ridge restaurant prosecutors say has ties to organized crime figures — was acquainted with one of the jurors, according to the feds.
Kupa was a regular at the restaurant, and Krasniqi a manager there. Fteja reached out to the juror several times on Krasniqi and Kupa’s behalf, eventually meeting the juror twice and offering to pay $50,000, then $100,000, for a not-guilty verdict.
Kupa is no stranger to prison — his criminal record dates back more than three decades. In 1997 and 1998, he and his brother were part of an interstate bank burglary crew, and in 2010, he and a band of heisters used high-powered drills and blowtorches to break in through the roof of an Astoria Federal Savings Bank branch in Brooklyn, according to court filings.
In 2011, Kupa and his brother were among 10 men indicted in a Gambino-linked cocaine distribution ring in Brooklyn and Staten Island. He was sentenced to 11 years for his role in the coke ring, plus nearly four more for the 2010 bank heist.
His lawyer, James Froccaro, declined comment Tuesday.
