Former owner of Roslindale cafe deserved the 15 1/2-year prison sentence he got for cocaine distribution, court rules

A federal appeals court today upheld the 188-month prison sentence Iskender Kapllani received after being found guilty of using his now defunct Arbri Cafe in Roslindale as a front for distributing cocaine.

Kapllani, 53, was convicted and sentenced in 2015 on a charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, along with a California man who shipped the drug to Kapllani's Belgrade Avenue restaurant for local distribution. Kapllani is currently a resident of a federal prison in New Jersey.

The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston rejected arguments by Kapllani and co-defendant Tony Bedini that while they were involved in cocaine-distribution conspiracies, they were not joined in one large cross-country conspiracy - and that their sentences were therefore unfairly based on that assumption. Although the two acknowledged Bedini sold drugs to Kapllani, the appeals court summarized, it was solely "arm's length" dealing between a wholesaler and a retailer, not a single, larger venture in which both were entangled.

The justices - who included retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter - essentially replied: Please. Evidence at their trial proved there were instances in which Kapllani didn't have the funds to pay Bedini for particular shipments and Bedini agreed to front him the money, which showed a closer relationship than somebody just going down to a corner store to pick something up.

Moreover, there is evidence that, when Kapllani traveled to Las Vegas for several days, he stayed with one of the West Coast-based participants, Teta. Thus, especially given the evidence of fronting already discussed, nothing in the record concerning the overlap between the Boston- and West Coast-based operations precludes a reasonable jury from finding them to be separate aspects of an "ongoing enterprise with a standing objective," namely, a single conspiracy to sell cocaine for profit.

The two co-defendants also argued their sentences were unfair because they were far longer than those given to several other people involved in the distribution. Well, yeah, the justices replied: Those people pleaded guilty, and that usually helps out at sentencing, while you guys decided to take your luck at trial.