Summer’s Earnings All Gone

Soon after Labor Day, during what East Hampton Town police called an illegal eviction, 12 university students from the island of Jamaica, working in East Hampton on J1 visas for the summer, lost many of their possessions, as well as thousands of dollars in cash. The thief, police believe, was an intermediary entrusted by the students to handle the lease arrangements.

The 12, all living in a house on Oakview Highway in East Hampton, had each paid $500 security for the first two weeks of their lease and another $500 apiece for the last two. The landlord told them at the end of August, the report says, that their lease had expired. The students responded that they still had their pre-paid final two weeks coming to them.

On the morning of Sept. 3 they all left for work. When they returned that evening, they told police, the locks on the door had been changed. Officers arrived to find the group standing out in the driveway.

Police called the landlord and told him that what he had done was illegal. The students were allowed back in, where they found their beds broken down and all their possessions piled in the living room.

As the 12, who had worked for various employers throughout the town, began sifting through their things, they discovered many items missing, including electronics, watches, and clothing, much of which had been purchased with the money they had earned. Several students who had saved their cash found that all of it was gone, amounting to thousands of dollars.

“It really is a shame,” Capt. Chris Anderson of the town police said yesterday. “They came here to work. Rent was paid to the landlord in advance. They funneled the money to one guy, who dealt with the landlord.”

That “one guy,” the captain said, appears to have taken off with the students’ final deposit, and possibly their money and possessions as well. Detectives are pursuing an investigation.