Fate Makes One a Felony

A Brooklyn woman who lost control of the 2016 Mercedes-Benz S.U.V. she was driving southbound on Stephen Hand’s Path near Bull Path — crashing into a tree, then careening, car spinning, into some bushes — was charged with drunken driving on Sunday, a little after noon.

According to the East Hampton Town police, Deborah Jean Lyons, 56, told police she had been driving to a Barnes Avenue house she owns at the time of the crash. When she was arraigned Monday morning, the right side of her face appeared blackened and badly bruised. Her husband was in court for the arraignment. 

“Chris made me drive,” she allegedly told the arresting officer on their initial contact. “I was going to Barnes,” she is quoted as saying, though it appears she was headed in the opposite direction on the police accident report. She was alone in the car at the time of the accident. The accident report initially released does not indicate that a trip to the hospital was made.

Ms. Lyons refused to take a breath test at headquarters after her arrest, said police, who also alleged she used abusive and profane language toward the arresting officer.  

If the arrest had occurred 10 months earlier, the charge would have been at the felony level, instead of the misdemeanor she is facing. This is because she was convicted of drunken driving in December of 2006, and an arrest on a driving while intoxicated charge within 10 years of a prior conviction on the same charge raises it to the felony level. Ms. Lyons is about 10 months clear of that condition.

Along with the drunken driving conviction, she was also convicted at the same time in 2006 of endangering the welfare of a minor. That conviction came three years before Leandra’s Law was passed into law in New York State, which makes D.W.I. with a minor in the car a felony. 

Police impounded the wrecked Mercedes.

Bail was set on Monday at $500, which was posted.

About 10 hours before Ms. Lyons’s arrest, and just a couple of hundred feet farther south from where she was taken into custody, East Hampton Town police arrested Luis Redbohan-Gonzalez, 44, of East Hampton. He was about a minute or so away from his Route 114 residence when he was stopped by police in a 2007 Dodge van. They alleged that the van was swerving badly and moving at a high rate of speed on the narrow road. The traffic stop came at about 1 a.m. on Sunday.

As with Ms. Lyons, Mr. Redbohan-Gonzalez has a prior drunken driving conviction. Unlike hers, however, his was a little more than four years ago, making the new charge a felony. At headquarters, he took a breath test, with an alleged reading of .16 of 1 percent, double the .08 number that defines intoxication. 

On top of two felony D.W.I. charges, one based on the officer’s observation, the other on the breath test, he is also charged with unlicensed driving as a felony, and a misdemeanor charge of driving without an ignition interlock device, which had been required after his previous conviction.

Bail was set at $15,000 Sunday morning. He remained in custody in county jail as of yesterday morning. Under state law, he must be indicted by Friday or released, although it appears he is subject to a detainer request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which asks that he be held for an additional 48 hours after being scheduled for release, to allow ICE agents to pick him up. 

A Brooklyn woman apparently visiting East Hampton for the weekend ended up in handcuffs early Saturday morning after a spat with a housemate and a subsequent charge of driving while intoxicated. 

Carole Beaupre, 54, first came to the attention of East Hampton Town police when they were called to a King’s Point Road house in Springs about an hour before midnight Friday. It appears from a redacted incident report from the police that Ms. Beaupre had gotten into a dispute with a Manhattan woman who was also at the house, Sally Hershberger. Both women declined to press charges, with Ms. Beaupre agreeing to go to another residence in town to spend the night.

At that point, according to the report, she appears to have been picked up by a taxi and taken to the other house.

She did not stay long at the second house, however, according to the police. A few minutes after midnight, she was pulled over on Cedar Street behind the wheel of a 2005 Porsche, for speeding, police said. The speed limit on that road is 30; police said she was doing 53. “I drank a lot of tequila earlier,” she allegedly told the arresting officer, “but now I’m sober.” At headquarters, her breath test produced an alleged reading of .08, just high enough to merit a D.W.I. charge. 

It was her first brush with the law, and she was released later that morning without bail.