Man gets 20 years for fatal Christmas Day shooting of Valley Stream man

A Hempstead man was sentenced today to 20 years behind bars for the fatal Christmas Day 2017 shooting of a Valley Stream man while he was walking to the train station to pick up his daughter, according to a release from District Attorney Madeline Singas’ office.

Antoine Foster, 19, pleaded guilty on Oct. 16, 2019 to first-degree manslaughter, after he, along with Shameq Sullins, 19, also of Hempstead and acting as lookout, stood in front of an apartment building on Terrace Avenue at around 6:20 p.m. and fired multiple shots at a vehicle, inadvertently hitting 36-year-old Rafael Cepeda in the chest, killing him.

Cepeda had been leaving his apartment to pick up his young daughter at the train station when Foster shot him.

Sullins had pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on Dec. 3, 2019. He was sentenced to seven years in prison on Jan. 28. Both are associated with the Bloods street gang, according to the D.A.

Nassau County police arrested Sullins on Jan. 2, while U.S. Marshals and local police arrested Foster on June 20 in Alexandria Va., where he was allegedly staying with a family friend.

“This defendant opened fire on a busy Hempstead street during rush hour, killing an innocent man who was going to the train station to pick up his daughter,” Singas said of Foster in a statement. “Senseless acts of gun violence like this have devastating consequences for our communities and cannot be tolerated. I hope today’s sentence brings some sense of closure to Mr. Cepeda’s family.”