Bad Week for Cab Drivers

Two women waiting in their taxicabs at the Montauk train station Friday for the arrival of the Cannonball had a brawl that ended with both of them charged with felony assault. For Deirdre L. Vinson, 29, and Pauline Simpson-Johnson, 53, the fight was the culmination of several days of bad blood between them.

The two first exchanged heated words on Aug. 15 outside a motel on East Lake Drive, where Ms. Simpson-Johnson has been living. She called East Hampton Town police that day to complain that Ms. Vinson, a driver for General J’s Taxi, had been sleeping in her cab in front of Ms. Simpson-Johnson’s room. The responding officer told Ms. Vinson to leave the property and not return unless invited by a resident, and she reportedly agreed.

The next day, Ms. Simpson-Johnson told police she was driving her taxi in Riverhead when the engine began acting up. She took it to a gas station, where an attendant told her he was unable to put gas in the tank; there seemed to be sand in the tank. She again called police, blaming Ms. Vinson for the vandalism.  The two women gave different accounts of Friday’s altercation., which began at a little before 7 p.m. Ms. Vinson was sitting in her taxi when a cab from Montauk Transportation pulled in next to her. Ms. Simpson-Johnson, Ms. Vinson said, was sitting in the front passenger’s seat.

“Pauline started to yell at me,” Ms. Vinson said in her statement to police. “I turned off the taxi and exited to confront her about the ongoing problem.” According to Ms. Vinson, when she got to the passenger side where Ms. Simpson-Johnson was sitting, “she forcibly opened the door, striking me.” Then, Ms. Vinson said, Ms. Simpson-Johnson, who was holding a flip cellphone, struck her on the head with it, above her left eye. Ms. Vinson said that the driver of the Montauk Transportation taxi restrained her as Ms. Simpson-Johnson began striking her. She had her car keys in her hand, police said, and struck Ms. Simpson-Johnson with them.

 According to Ms. Simpson-Johnson, it was Ms. Vinson who began striking her with a cellphone. “I hit her with my phone. I’m not going to lie. She hit me, so I hit her,” Ms. Simpson-Johnson told police. She said Ms. Vinson had threatened her, saying that if she ever called the police again, “she would hit me again.”

Town police, who have a strong presence at the train station for the arrival of the Cannonball, an express train from New York City, quickly moved in. After sorting through the statements and viewing their injuries, they charged both women with second-degree assault.

The two were taken to East Hampton Town Justice Court in separate vehicles the next morning, after spending the night in separate holding cells at police headquarters, and were kept in separate areas of the courthouse as they awaited their arraignments.

Justice Lisa R. Rana set bail for both at $1,000. “Stay away from her,” she told each of the two women, who were never in the courtroom at the same time. Bail was posted in each case.

A different local cabbie is facing a four-month sentence in county jail after pleading guilty to three misdemeanors, stemming from various confrontations with other drivers. James E. Wyeth, 48, was driving for Taxi One last year when he was twice arrested following altercations with two other cabbies, one working for his own company, the other for Lindy’s Taxi. On Tuesday, he agreed to the sentence in exchange for a guilty plea on three of the charges.

The last cabbie in handcuffs recently was Maqsood H. Syed, 53, of Holtsville. At about 3 a.m. on Aug. 13, Mr. Syed was dropping off a female fare on Gannett Road in Montauk when, she told police, he pressed her up against the cab and kissed her. He was arrested that afternoon. Charged with harassment, a violation, he was released without bail, but with a future date on the court’s criminal calendar.