Woman pleads guilty in lover's beating death at Centre Island home

A former Long Beach woman admitted Thursday to beating her estranged lover to death before setting fire to his family’s posh North Shore vacation home in what prosecutors said was a failed attempt to try to cover up her crime.

Jennifer Gross, 54, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2018 death of James Coppola, 75, in a deal that includes a 22-year prison sentence.

Law enforcement officials said Gross went to Coppola’s Centre Island house on Nov. 20, 2018, to ask for money.

But he refused and an argument turned physical, with Gross hitting him in the head and body with an object that was inside the residence, officials said. 

The two had a 20-year relationship that included violence and “stealing of money,” according to police. They said Coppola had an order of protection against Gross at the time of the deadly encounter.

Firefighters found Coppola’s badly beaten body near the front door of the Centre Island Road home after they doused the flames, according to authorities.

An indictment had charged Gross with murder, along with other crimes that included arson, burglary and robbery — charges dropped as part of her plea. Police said they focused on Gross as the suspect after she pawned the jewelry Coppola had been wearing that night.

Gross admitted Thursday as prosecutor Jared Rosenblatt questioned her in Nassau County Court that she had fatally struck Coppola inside the home before lighting the residence on fire.

The victim's son, John Coppola, 39, of Brooklyn, said outside the courtroom later that his father was a hardworking guy who had run the construction business his own father had started.

The younger Coppola said his father, also from Brooklyn, survived a quadruple bypass surgery and a kidney transplant before falling victim to Gross' rage.

"He tried to see the good in people and unfortunately, this person was someone he felt sorry for and tried to help," the son said of Gross — alluding to the arrest of her former husband.

"In return for that, she killed him and lit his body on fire. And I don't think he deserved that," he added.

The defendant's now-former husband, David Gross, was a Nassau District Court judge who went to federal prison in 2008 after admitting to conspiring with an accused mobster to launder more than $400,000 in proceeds connected to stolen jewelry.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Groder, who represents Jennifer Gross, said Thursday that the divorced mother of two had an on-and-off romantic relationship with Coppola for years in which he gave her financial support.

He said Gross admitted her guilt because "she wanted to accept responsibility for her actions" and knew "that this was the best outcome for her."