NEWARK, N.J. — Weeks before fictional mobsters in “The Sopranos” are scheduled to return to television screens across the country, a real-life version has surfaced after more than a decade on the lam.

Authorities in New York City captured reputed Genovese crime family captain Michael Coppola late Friday night in Manhattan, a spokesman for New Jersey’s Office of the Attorney General said yesterday.

Coppola, who is wanted in connection with the murder of a New Jersey mobster in 1977, is scheduled for arraignment this afternoon in Somerset County before state Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong.

Coppola disappeared from his Spring Lake home in the summer of 1996 just before he was charged with murdering John “Johnny Coca-Cola” Lardiere outside a motel in Bridgewater 19 years earlier.

Lardiere, 68, was shot five times in the parking lot of the Red Bull Inn as he went to his car. He had left prison several hours earlier for an Easter furlough. Two handguns, one of which carried a silencer, were recovered nearby along with an ankle holster. Authorities speculated that Lardiere was killed to keep him from talking to investigators, possibly about links between organized crime and garbage haulers.

Lardiere had been jailed in 1971 after refusing to answer questions from the State Commission on Investigation despite having been granted immunity.

An arrest warrant was issued for Coppola in August 1996. According to reports at the time, information from Lucchese crime family member Thomas Ricciardi, who had entered the federal Witness Protection Program, was instrumental in convincing authorities to charge Coppola.

Investigators in Florida received tips in 2003 that Coppola was in the southwest region of the state and released a computer-generated photograph in hopes that area residents might recognize him, but they were unable to find him.

Coppola is believed to have still exerted influence over organized crime activities in New Jersey while he was a fugitive.