Parent, fisherman, bar 'dad': Who was Richard Koop, the man Nadine Menendez killed with a car?

Before heading out to the patio at the Westside Village Tavern, pause for a second and take a look at the last bar chair.

The small plaque — “in memory of Koop” — is easy to miss, but it’s a large reminder to his friends of a “townie,” a good man and father.

Richard Koop, 49, died on Dec. 12, 2018, on Bogota's Main Street when a car driven by Nadine Arslanian struck and killed him just after 7:35 p.m. across the street from his home.

“It was a loss for everyone,” said Gerry Fiore, part-time manager and bartender at the Westside Village Tavern in Ridgefield Park. “There were lines and lines of people at his services.”

Nadine Arslanian Menendez was indicted last month by federal prosecutors in a bribery scheme along with her husband, Sen. Bob Menendez.

Arslanian — who began dating Menendez in February 2018 and married him in October 2020 — was not charged after the crash that ended Koop's life. Details about what unfolded on the evening of Dec. 12, 2018, are outlined in a Bogota Police Department report obtained by NorthJersey.com. A photo of the Mercedes that Arslanian was driving that night shows the windshield completely destroyed.

A month after the crash, Arslanian was texting Wael Hana — an Egyptian American businessman also recently indicted in the bribery scheme — about her lack of a car, according to an indictment brought by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Hana later provided her with a 2019 Mercedez-Benz C-300 convertible, the indictment says.

'As if it didn't happen, except we knew it happened'

After Koop's death, family and friends who depended on him for support struggled with closure, feeling they didn't have answers about what happened on the night his life was so abruptly cut short.

“I never got closure, to be honest with you," said close friend Michele Maio, who grew up in Ridgefield Park with Koop. "I Googled and Googled and Googled, I was so obsessed with it. It was so unfair how he died.”

Danielle DeBouter, Koop's ex-wife with whom he raised a 16-year-old son, Jake, said nothing could make up for losing her son's father.

“Nobody ever reached out to us at all, ‘Is your son OK?’” Debouter said. “Nothing. It was as if it didn't happen, except we knew it happened.”

DeBouter had known Koop since she was 14 years old, but they didn't start dating until they were in their 30s. They divorced years ago, but he was such a "good co-parent" that "people would say to us all the time, 'Well, if I didn't know better, I would think you guys were still married,'" DeBouter said.

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Adirondacks trips, swim meets, felling a Christmas tree

Koop was an avid fisherman and outdoorsman, and he took Jake on trips to the Adirondacks to see Koop's mother, DeBouter said. He made it to all of Jake's soccer games and practices, went to his school concerts and cut down a Christmas tree with the family every year.

When Jake spent summers on Long Beach Island with DeBouter’s family, Koop would drive down to see him compete in swim meets, and take them out to dinner or an arcade.

“Richard always put Jake first. Everything was Jake first,” DeBouter said.

Fiore remembered Koop telling her about his son’s Halloween costume one year. “His son was going to dress up as a pink doughnut, and Rich was so excited,” she said. “He said he was going out to buy accessories. He lived for his kid, and it’s so sad. He loved him so much.”

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'Down-to-earth gentleman,' talented baseball player

Koop was raised in Ridgefield Park by his mother, Gisela, who had emigrated from Germany. His father, Bruno, died when Koop was a child.

Perry Maio, who went to school with Koop from third grade at Roosevelt Elementary School up through Ridgefield Park High School, remembered him as a quiet, “down-to-earth gentleman” and talented baseball player.

"I trusted him with my own wife, how about that," Maio said jokingly. "He would hang out with her, and I just knew his character so I always trusted a person like him, you know?"

Later in life, the Maios bought the Cozy Tavern in Bogota, a place like the bar in "Cheers," Michele said — one where the patrons and workers all grew to depend on Koop. The business, like the Westside Village Tavern, installed a gold plaque on the bar that reads "In Memory of Koop."

The Cozy Tavern

Jaycee Castor, 34, first met Koop about 13 years ago — during a bad storm.

She had just started working at the Cozy Tavern in Bogota and was by herself there when the power went out. She was terrified, when in walked Koop.

“Him barely even knowing who I was, said, ‘I cannot believe that your doors are open and your lights were on! Come on, I’ll give you a ride home!’” Castor said. “And he was wonderful to me from that day forward. He’s a man that would give you the shirt off his back."

Taylor Carpluk, 28, replays voicemails that Koop left her so she can hear his laugh, which she described as loud, long and deep. She first met him when he was a co-worker of her father’s at Metropolitan Exposition, where he would help set up and take down equipment for shows at the Javits Center around 2013, she said.

When she began bartending at the Cozy Tavern, Carpluk said, she and Koop struck up a friendship. She would call him the bar "dad," explaining that Koop would hang out with her during shifts and make sure nobody said anything inappropriate to her, and defused any tension. He made her and her family feel safe as she worked until 2 or 3 a.m.

They had planned a trip to Vermont together, but it didn’t end up happening. Carpluk said she later got a tattoo of the Green Mountains with the words “In time I will meet you there.”

“He went through a lot ... with me. He was there for me a lot,” Carpluk said.

'Out of admiration and respect for him'

Fiore is part-time manager and bartender at Ridgefield Park's Westside Village Tavern, which also serves lunch and dinner. She said the small bar is a family that helps one another in times of need. “Everyone knows each other here,” she said. “It’s not just a bar. People come to hang out; we have barbecues on the desk and chili cook-offs and fundraisers.”

Fiore remembered getting the news of Koop’s death five years ago as if it were yesterday. She was in the middle of a class and stood up in complete shock after reading a text message about the news. She said one friend she called to see if it was true was already crying hysterically, and “it just made it real.”

Fiore said Koop wasn't a "barfly" and did the "right thing and took an Uber that night to come home and got smashed by a car."

The Bogota Police Department investigation report reads, "Ms. Arslanian was not at fault in this crash. Mr. Koop was jaywalking and did not cross the street at an intersection or in a marked crosswalk.”

After Koop’s death, some of his friends asked to put a plaque on a Westside Village Tavern bar chair and chipped in for it. “It was out of admiration and respect for him.”

“He was just that kind of person — you could tell he had a good mom,” Fiore said. “He would be the first person to show up if you were stuck on the side of a road or to carry someone’s groceries.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Richard Koop: Who was man Nadine Menendez killed with car?