Sign-Napping Story
One night last summer, three East Hampton teenagers who were old enough to know better got a brilliant idea to steal the carved sign in front of Santa Fe Junction, a restaurant in the village. The case came before Town Justice Catherine Cahill last month and she approved a plea bargain that dismissed the disorderly conduct charge pending against one young man, if he stays out of trouble for six months. The others pleaded guilty to the same minor violation and were ordered to serve 30 hours of community service and make restitution. The punishment fit the crime.
But serious questions were raised by the young men's parents about the investigative methods East Hampton Village detectives employed and about the necessity of originally charging the young men, who were reportedly never in trouble before, with grand larceny, a felony with a maximum penalty of four years in prison.
Since the replacement sign had cost $1,700, police said the law left them no choice but to lodge felony charges. They added, however, that they had no intention of taking the case before a grand jury for felony indictments, but of recommending plea bargains.
Police also confirmed that one young man had agreed to make a tape-recorded phone call and then to wear a body wire in attempts to wrest confessions from his friends.
The father of one of the accused complained that the "police took this matter right to the extreme limits of the law." He said his son had aspirations of becoming a police officer himself some day and would now have to answer in the affirmative when asked if he was ever charged with a felony. That could very well cost him his career.
As to the tape-recorded phone calls and body wire to investigate a minor crime, Village Police Chief Glen Stonemetz Jr. said his department used such techniques "a lot more than we used to." Gone are those small-town days, he said, when the police would take young miscreants home to their parents and let the family handle the punishment.
Recently, a Family Court judge ruled that no criminal charges should be lodged against a teenager who hid her newborn baby in a closet while she went to school. Instead of a possible misdemeanor charge - less serious than the charge brought here for sign-napping - the judge ordered strict supervision, counseling, and parenting classes, giving the girl an opportunity to finish high school and learn to be a responsible mother.
Police procedures, as well as justice, should be tempered with a dose of compassion, and that should be more possible in a small town than anywhere else. Unfortunately, with few crimes of a big-city nature to deal with here, the opposite is often the case.