Sheriff: Deputy nabs man in car with cocaine on lap

A Ronkonkoma man was arrested and charged with drug possession after a sheriff's deputy noticed a bag of cocaine on the man's lap as he sat in a parked car at a gas station Thursday afternoon, the Suffolk Sheriff's Department said.

It was shortly after 2:30 p.m. when Deputy Sheriff Michael Kern, assigned to highway patrol, stopped to use the restroom at a Gulf gas station at North Service Road and Old Nichols Road in Islandia. As he approached the restroom door the deputy noticed the driver, Michael T. Frenna, 52, of Ronkonkoma, looking down into his lap, sheriffs said.

"Deputy Kern observed what appeared to be a clear bag containing a white powdery substance in the male's lap," and the suspect "admitted to Deputy Kern that the substance was 'cocaine' and that he had other drugs in the vehicle," a 2009 Dodge Stratus, the sheriff's office said in a news release.

Frenna was arrested and held overnight for arraignment at First District Court in Central Islip on charges of fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of marijuana.