Police & Courts

A “tall white male” was asking patrons at the post office Saturday afternoon if they’d give him some money so he could “restore a broken flagpole,” and someone called in a report of peddling. By the time police arrived, the man had departed.

Two men were charged with drunken driving last week, in what was otherwise a quiet week on local roads.

The East Hampton Village Ambulance Association has hired a lawyer to fight what it says was an illegal transfer of its ambulance service certificate from the association to the village government without its agreement, notification, or use of administrative protocols required by state law. The transfer could lead to billing for ambulance services.

A 22-year-old Montauk man is facing drunken-driving charges after he lost control of his car on Abraham’s Path Sunday morning.

In Suffolk County Criminal Court on Thursday, Marc Dern of Springs pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the Feb. 5, 2022, death of Kevin Somers, a friend and fellow Maidstone Club employee. 

A 40-year-old man living on Toilsome Lane called police last Thursday afternoon to report “suspicious activity.” He had discovered a plastic bag wrapped tightly around the branch of a tree on his property and wanted his finding documented.

The wild weather that arrived in town late Friday afternoon prompted multiple road hazard calls to police. The blast of artic air, which brought blustery winds that downed numerous trees, was also blamed for one weather-driven accident.

On Christmas morning, there was a head-on collision on Three Mile Harbor-Hog Creek Road near Ingalls Road in Springs, in which a 27-year-old Springs man was charged with driving while intoxicated.

A woman who gave police her address as Brooklyn reported that thieves had stolen items from a Middle Lane mailbox four times between Nov. 2 and Dec. 17. The missing parcels, she said, include a Christmas ornament, artwork, a Luna brand blanket, and clothing. The thief will be charged with larceny if found; the matter was referred to the detective squad.

A dog on North Haven was at the heart of the hubbub on Christmas Eve. It had gone into the bay on that frigid morning, the Sag Harbor Village Police chief said, only to find itself in need of an “ice rescue.”

According to East Hampton Town police, a 26-year-old man entered a house at 13 West Drive in East Hampton without permission and refused to leave when asked. After arresting him, police discovered a small ziplock-style plastic bag in his pocket containing a powdery white substance, later determined to be cocaine.

A set of gang-related indictments last week was notable for zigzagging across Long Island, from a murder at a Farmingville nightclub to a shooting outside Lee Zeldin’s Shirley house, to an armed carjacking in Wantagh, to East Hampton. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney announced on Dec. 12 that the gang, called No Fake Love, or NFL, has been broken up.

East Hampton Town police reported a single alcohol-related arrest last week.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney announced Friday that a jury has found Alcides Lopez-Cambara guilty in the 2020 murder-robbery of Marco Grisales, whose last known address was in Sag Harbor.

A family dispute in August over a check-writing incident led to the arrest last Thursday of a Sag Harbor man on charges of grand larceny.

Residents of 10 Amy’s Lane told police Sunday that someone may be stealing their mail, after a book that was to have been delivered on Nov. 30 never arrived. They’d gone out to check the mail Saturday, they said, but found the mailbox door open and mail scattered all over the street. They alerted the mail carrier and the postmaster, and requested additional patrols in the area.

Three of the defendants in a midday theft of $94,000 in handbags from the Balenciaga store in March on East Hampton’s Newtown Lane have now been sentenced.

A house at 668 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike was already engulfed in flames by the time firefighters reached the scene on Saturday night.

After being awakened, the driver performed poorly on field sobriety tests, police reported, and was charged with two misdemeanor counts of driving while intoxicated.

A rare contested fire district election in Montauk saw record voter turnout on Tuesday. An incumbent commissioner was re-elected for a second five-year term by a margin of 25 votes.

Whatever happened to that late-June incident at the Goop shop in Sag Harbor, where two waiters were badly burned after a store employee toasted marshmallows for an event, using isopropyl alcohol?

A 20-year-old man who has reportedly been sleeping in the vestibule at 105 Newtown Lane, a commercial-residential building, was threatened with arrest for trespassing on Dec. 8 if he continued to sleep there. Police told him to leave, and he gathered his possessions and went out into a bitter winter evening.

On the night of Dec. 5, a homeless 67-year-old man in a wheelchair donned a Santa hat and tried to get into the Point Bar and Grill in Montauk. According to East Hampton Town police, he was refused service after he “created a disturbance” and was “very intoxicated.”

Sag Harbor police clocked a New York City man doing 41 miles an hour in a 20 m.p.h. zone on Dec. 7, and presented him with a speeding ticket. He then jumped out of the car, police said, refused to get back in it, and deposited the ticket on the police car before driving away.

The race for a seat on Montauk Fire District's board of commissioners is contested this year, with two experienced first responders facing off for a five-year term. Voting is Tuesday from 2 to 9 p.m. at the Fire Department headquarters on Flamingo Avenue. All registered voters in Montauk are eligible to cast ballots; the commissioner's election is not limited to fire department members.

After crashing a Mini Cooper into a Kia minivan, the driver of the Mini Cooper ran away, according to East Hampton Town police.

Annual fire district elections, in which voters select commissioners to oversee finances, personnel, and other administrative aspects of volunteer fire department services, will take place Tuesday in Bridgehampton, Montauk, Amagansett, and Springs.

A windsurfer was reported in distress off Long Beach on a windy and rainy Saturday afternoon, but while a multiagency response including Southampton, Sag Harbor, and East Hampton police was being organized, the windsurfer got to shore and said there had never been a problem.

In what Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney described as "meticulously planned heists," a pair of thieves allegedly targeted a wealthy woman with residences in Sag Harbor and Manhattan and made off with cash, art, guns, jewelry, fine wines, and other items valued at more than $1 million.

A 14-year-old girl suffered a laceration to her head on Friday when she was hit by a three-foot section of hollow metal tubing thrown by a juvenile from the top of the radar tower at Camp Hero in Montauk.