A Nassau County judge Tuesday sentenced a Williston Park man to 15 years in prison for shipping a kilogram of cocaine in a television box to himself from California to Long Island.
David Kappen, 35, who was convicted in June of criminal possession of a controlled substance, and his co-defendant, Trent Singleton, shipped a television box filled with cocaine from a UPS store in Rancho Cucamonga, CA to an Auto Spa in Williston Park, prosecutors said.
Police in California became suspicious that a 27-inch flatscreen television was being shipped all the way to Long Island and notified Nassau County police.
When the package arrived in August 2010, Nassau’s Narcotics Vice Bureau set up surveillance and saw Kappen and Singleton in the vicinity of the Auto Spa, along with a third co-defendant, Jamie Denton, placing the package into Singleton’s rental car.
Kappen and Singleton later fled from police when they attempted to pull them over. Singleton, at the wheel, rammed a police car during the pursuit, prosecutors said. They were later caught on foot shortly after the police chase.
Singleton pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a controlled substance and was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison in December. Denton, arrested a day later, pleaded guilty to criminal facilitation in June 2011.