Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced that a Deer Park man was sentenced to five to the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison to the top homicide count of Manslaughter in the Second Degree for the November 2017 death of an 18-year-old woman in a Levittown parking lot.

 

Daniel Coppolo, 33, pleaded guilty on April 25 before Judge Terence Murphy to Manslaughter in the Second Degree (a C felony), Leaving the Scene without Reporting (a D felony), and Tampering with Physical Evidence (an E felony) relating to the homicide. He pled guilty to Robbery in the Third Degree (a D felony) for a separate incident where he used force against a security guard to escape after shoplifting.

 

“Taranjit Parmar was a beautiful young woman with her entire life ahead of her when she was senselessly killed by this defendant’s recklessness,” DA Singas said. “It is incomprehensible that this defendant could selfishly take the promising young life of an 18-year-old woman over a trivial fender bender. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to the Parmar family for their unbearable loss and we hope that today’s sentence brings them some solace and deters other reckless drivers.”

 

DA Singas said that on November 9, 2017, at approximately 5 p.m., 18-year old Taranjit Parmar was driving a grey 2018 Jeep Cherokee eastbound on Hempstead Turnpike. Just before the intersection of Gardiners Avenue in Levittown, Daniel Coppolo, who was driving a red 2013 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, pulled out of the parking lot exit near the Ultra Gas Station at 3300 Hempstead Turnpike, and the two vehicles were involved in a minor collision. After the incident, the drivers pulled both vehicles into the parking lot west of the gas station.

 

Parmar exited her vehicle and called her mother. While on the phone with her mother, Parmar yelled for the driver to stop and grabbed the defendant’s truck as he started to move. Coppolo drove through the parking lot, dragged the victim and ultimately ran her over before fleeing the scene by driving the wrong way on Hempstead Turnpike.

 

After civilian witnesses called 911, the victim was transported to the hospital by NCPD Paramedics in cardiac arrest and was pronounced deceased that night.

 

After an investigation, members of the Nassau County Police Department located the defendant’s truck in the parking lot of the Target in Westbury, where Coppolo had been arrested for forcibly stealing items from the Target several days after the November 9 incident. Upon inspection of the truck, rubbing compound was found applied to the area that had been damaged in the initial collision.

 

Coppolo, a former FDNY employee, was arrested on December 23, 2017, for the Levittown incident.

 

Senior District Attorney Katie Zizza and Assistant District Attorney Tara DePalo of DA Singas’ Vehicular Crimes Bureau are prosecuting the case. Coppolo is represented by Lawrence Carra, Esq.