Police & Courts

The steel-hulled, 60-foot trawler named Act I, captained by Chuck Morici, had caught 4,000 pounds of porgy and had no issues on Nov. 15 before near tragedy occurred: “A three-inch piece of steel let go by the keel cooler pipe,” he said by phone on dry land Monday. “I could see daylight through the hull.” Three Coast Guard stations were called in to save the day.

Public school districts on the South Fork are increasingly turning to retired police officers to fill critical security roles. “These are people who have children in the schools or have gone through the schools themselves, who know the community. They’re familiar faces, and they’re responsive,” said Adam Fine, the East Hampton School District superintendent.

Two Marine Patrol officers observed some 10 vehicles parked between mile markers 1A and 13A on Napeague on Nov. 14, shortly after 9 p.m., and questioned their owners. Every truck belonged to someone who was fishing on the beach for tuna or striped bass. No one was ticketed.

The first time this happened, the community responded in force that same afternoon with a rally attended by hundreds at the downtown Montauk green. While there was no rally this time around, a group of Montauk School students and parents took matters into their own hands by painting over the hateful scrawlings by day’s end with a colorful mural.

Police got a call about “two subjects performing lewd acts in a white Nissan Rogue” at Main Beach last Thursday night. Officers found just one person in the car, a woman who said she’d been watching a movie on her phone.

Three fire departments battled a blaze Wednesday afternoon that destroyed a house on Springs-Fireplace Road near Harrison Avenue in Springs. The house had been unoccupied but for multiple pets, which are thought to have died in the fire.

A steel-hulled fishing vessel out of Montauk named Act I began sinking Wednesday morning about five nautical miles south of Watch Hill, R.I., east of Fishers Island. The Coast Guard Station in Montauk was called to assist.

East Hampton Village police nabbed a man and a woman from Queens on Friday who they say match the description of shoplifters who hit the Balenciaga store twice this year, once on July 1 and again on Sept. 17. A spokesperson for Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said by email on Tuesday that there was "no indication" that the pair are connected to the organized gang from Newark, N.J., who carried out a dramatic daytime handbag heist at the shop in March 2022.

East Hampton Town police are canvassing downtown Montauk after new antisemitic graffiti was discovered Saturday morning on the side of Bounce Beach Montauk on South Emerson Street. 

East Hampton Town police are investigating a string of thefts in Montauk in which valuables were stolen from at least four cars sometime from the evening of Oct. 30 into the morning of Oct. 31.

A man was seen stealing a pack of Boar’s Head bacon on Friday morning at Damark’s Market on Three Mile Harbor Road. After an officer spoke to him, the man returned to the store to pay $8.

The Amagansett Fire Department, with help from the East Hampton Fire Department, contained a house fire that shut down Montauk Highway near Handy Lane for about three hours last Thursday afternoon.

A 51-year-old East Hampton man has been charged with multiple misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child after he allegedly made what the East Hampton School District called "an unauthorized stop" during his morning bus route on Wednesday, Nov. 1.

A 44-year-old East Hampton man is facing a felony charge of first-degree criminal contempt for allegedly violating an order of protection stemming from an incident witnessed by a 14-year-old child.

An officer went to Sag Harbor's Windmill Beach Saturday afternoon to check on a man who’d been seen lying on the sand for some time. What with the great weather that day — the temperature was near 70 and the sun was strong — he’d fallen asleep, he said. He was fine.

On local roads in the last 10 days, a total of six people were taken to the hospital after car crashes in East Hampton and Montauk.

Hundreds of Montaukers and friends from nearby communities came together Monday afternoon — with friends calling friends calling friends, until the gazebo was nearly surrounded — to stand up against antisemitism, which reared its ugly head at dawn that day when swastikas and other hateful graffiti were discovered spray-painted in several places in the hamlet.

An East Hampton Town Police dispatcher confirmed Monday morning that officers are on scene in Montauk investigating multiple incidents of antisemitic hate-crime vandalism.

Shortly before 11 p.m. on Oct. 18, “a large brown bag containing an assortment of women’s clothes” was brought to police headquarters for safekeeping after being found in front of the Dragon Hemp Apothecary on Main Street in Sag Harbor.

Mark Ripolone, formerly of Montauk, took a plea deal Tuesday in New York State Supreme Court, admitting to stealing close to $400,000 from clients over three years.

On Friday around 3 p.m., a man walked out of the Sweet Spot, the new ice cream place on Newtown Lane in East Hampton Village, without paying for his milkshake.

The East Hampton Town Police Department has given the all-clear signal at the Amagansett School after a bomb threat was received by email just before 9 a.m. Wednesday. The school — where the day's classes were just beginning — was immediately evacuated, police said in a release.

A 28-year-old Riverhead man was arrested in East Hampton on Sept. 30 and charged with two felony counts of criminal mischief in the second degree.

East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen was driving a 2009 Audi S.U.V. on the morning of Oct. 3, when it was rear-ended by a 2012 Subaru Forester driven by an 82-year-old East Hampton woman.

A landscaping company working on Bluff Point Road in Sag Harbor was told to turn off their leaf blowers on Monday morning, Columbus Day, not because there were no leaves on the ground yet but because leaf blowing is forbidden on holidays.

A federal jury convicted a Montauk fisherman on Wednesday of falsifying records in order to sell fluke and black sea bass in quantities that vastly exceeded legal limits. 

Five boaters were rescued from a 24-foot vessel named Gloria on Sept. 20, after the craft was seen taking on water about a mile off the coast in Gardiner’s Bay. Marine Patrol officers were able to tow the boat to the Gann Road launch, where it was removed from the water with some difficulty. The officers found no cause for citation.

A Queens man has been arrested on felony forgery charges after Suffolk County police said he used counterfeit $100 bills to buy merchandise at more than a dozen small businesses in the eastern part of the county. 

An iPad belonging to Blade helicopter service was reported missing from a desk in the lobby of East Hampton Airport on Sept. 16. Also at the airport, two days later, a pair of blue Beats wireless headphones went missing from the desk where the iPad had been charging. The same man was observed taking both items.

Capt. Jeff Erickson, who has been with the East Hampton Village police since he graduated from the police academy in 1991, was named acting chief of the department at Friday’s village board meeting.