LI Man Gets Max Sentence For Killing 18-Year-Old In Hit-And-Run

A Deer Park man received the maximum sentence for the hit-and-run death of an 18-year-old college student in Levittown in November 2017.

Daniel Coppolo, 33, was sentenced to 15 years in prison today for killing Taranjit Parmar in a Levittown parking lot after a fender-bender on Hempstead Turnpike. On April 25, Coppolo pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, leaving the scene without reporting and tampering with physical evidence. He also pleaded guilty to third-degree robbery for a separate incident where he used force against a security guard to flee 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,” said Nassau County District Attorney Madeline 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.”

Around 5 p.m. on Nov. 9, 2017, 18-year-old Taranjit Parmar, of Levittown, was driving her 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee east on Hempstead Turnpike. Daniel Coppolo, who was driving a 2013 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, pulled out of the parking lot of the Ultra Gas Station, located at 3300 Hempstead Turnpike. The two cars hit in a minor collision, and both drivers pulled into the parking lot near the gas station.

Parmar got out of her car and called her mother. While on the phone, Parmar yelled for Coppolo to stop and grabbed his truck as he started to move. Coppolo drove through the parking lot, dragging Parmar with his car, before running her over and fleeing the scene by driving the wrong way on Hemsptead Turnpike.

Witnesses called 911 and Parmar was rushed to a hospital in cardiac arrest by Nassau County Police Department paramedics. She died from her injuries that night.

Police searched for Coppolo for weeks. Eventually, officers found his car in the parking lot of a Target in Westbury, where he had been arrested for shoplifting from the store several days after he killed Parmar. When they inspected the truck, officers found that rubbing compound had been applied to the area damaged in the fender bender.

Coppolo, a former FDNY employee, was arrested on Dec. 23, 2017 for the death of Parmar.