Police & Courts

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.

On Saturday afternoon, Harbormaster Joseph Vish responded to a report of an unknown material — what looked to be either a pile of 10 “horse manure patties” or “granola cookies with hard candies pushed inside them,” according to the official report — in the parking lot of Sammy’s Beach. He cleaned up the mess.

A scuffle at Innersleeve Records in Amagansett on the afternoon of Sept. 10 left one man with “substantial pain, swelling, and bleeding” and landed another in court facing three criminal charges.

Town and county police are seeking the public’s help in finding three men who they say engaged in criminal mischief at Marshall and Sons Service Center on Sept. 2.

A 63-year-old homeless woman was arrested late Sunday afternoon after a standoff with police in which she barricaded herself into a house in the Pine Neck neighborhood in Noyac, Southampton Town police said Monday.

Labor Day weekend was “one of the busiest weekends we’ve ever had,” East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo told the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee on Saturday, with 17 arrests — including nine for driving while intoxicated — to go with 16 car accidents and 395 calls for help between Friday morning and Monday morning.

Just after 3 a.m. on Sept. 4, police ticketed three people for drinking in public at the Sportime facility on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett. Police called a cab for one of them, a Springs man who was also charged with public urination. The cabbie called back a short time later to report the man had left his wallet, cellphone, and other personal property in the cab.

In a final act before retiring on Aug. 30, Justice Paul Baisley Jr. of New York State Supreme Court, who has issued a series of rulings against East Hampton Town regarding both East Hampton Town Airport and a 4,000-foot stretch of Napeague oceanfront popularly known as Truck Beach, referred the attorney Daniel Rodgers to the Grievance Committee for the Tenth Judicial District for disciplinary consideration.

Last Thursday afternoon, for the second week in a row, police tracked down and arrested suspects in a shoplifting incident at a luxury boutique on Newtown Lane. First it happened at Balenciaga; this time it was at Prada.

A 50-year-old man was hit by a car and killed on Saturday night while crossing Montauk Highway just east of the Scuttlehole Road intersection.

Late Saturday afternoon, not long after the manager of the Balenciaga retail store on Newtown Lane called East Hampton Village police to report a shoplifting, a man fitting the manager’s description of the thief was spotted strolling down the street wearing the missing merchandise.

Officers were summoned on Aug. 23 at 4:34 a.m. to the Montauk 7-Eleven, where a man was seen and heard “screaming at a clerk” about sandwich prices. The man, who turned out to be homeless, was told to calm down.

A man who attempted to gain access last week to the stage at an Upper East Side event where the actress Drew Barrymore was being interviewed has been arrested by Southampton Town police on a misdemeanor charge of stalking.

After 40 years on the force, it’s not a single rewarding moment that stands out for East Hampton Village Police Chief Michael Tracey but rather “the little things. Maybe you pull someone over and they’re scared to death, their hands are shaking, and you can put them at ease. You have to be willing, and awake, and paying attention, to see the opportunity to make a difference.”

At Si Si at East Hampton Point Sunday afternoon, an “extremely agitated and intoxicated” East Hampton man, 33, was yelling that his friends had stuck him with a bill of $855.41. Police called his mother, and she called in with a credit card. An officer drove him home, passing on a warning that he’s not permitted to return to the restaurant.

The Long Island Rail Road characterized the blaze as “small,” though it did cause a train to be canceled, and said it was “quickly extinguished and nobody was injured.”

The East Hampton Town Board hired a neutral investigator to probe personnel matters within the Town Police Department in light of the scathing complaint filed in June by Officer Andrea M. Kess alleging she is a victim of gender-based discrimination and harassment in a hostile work environment.

Lifeguards were busy on East Hampton beaches in the last week, with rip currents and marine life matching up with heavy crowds. “We made 16 saves between Aug. 7 and Aug. 14,” said Drew Smith, the head lifeguard for East Hampton Village. “We’ve had an unusually busy summer.”

East Hampton Town police charged a Montauk man with third-degree criminal mischief, a felony, following an Aug. 8 incident at Gurney’s Montauk Resort and Seawater Spa.

A Lily Pond Lane homeowner lodged a civil complaint on Aug. 8 against a contractor “who had not been removing his shoes as he’d been instructed to do.” The contractor agreed to abide by her rules in future. A few days later, a manager at Stop and Shop reported two customers arguing over the price of watermelon on Friday afternoon and asked that police intervene.

Prosecutors in both Suffolk County and town court systems are turning up the heat on drunken drivers, leaving them with little room to plead down their charges.

East Hampton Town police arrested two men on Monday who are alleged to be responsible for the theft of hand tools from an unoccupied house on Harbor Boulevard in Springs.

Police arrested two men on felony charges of drunken driving last week, one in Montauk and one in Sag Harbor. Both men reportedly attracted police attention with traffic violations.

A resident of Harbor Avenue in Sag Harbor called police on July 31 when, just before 10 p.m., a man claiming to be with the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office knocked on his door and began asking questions about a woman named "Lisa." The man, described as "late 40s or early 50s, wearing a baseball cap and plainclothes, with a shield on a necklace around his neck," provided no identification and left when the resident said he didn't know Lisa. Officers canvassed the neighborhood but couldn't find anyone matching the description.

Lifeguards responded to what appeared to be two swimmers in distress a mile out from beach access marker number 14A on July 26 at around 4:30 p.m. A search on Jet Skis revealed that there were no struggling swimmers in the water — it was a 14-foot-long log.

Following an ongoing investigation into thefts from restaurants of used cooking oil, which is considered a valuable commodity that is frequently sold to biodiesel fuel refineries, two UpIsland men have been arrested. They are charged with multiple counts of misdemeanor petty larceny and one count each of third-degree criminal mischief with intent to damage another person’s property, a felony.