Police & Courts

Thieves hit a pop-up jewelry shop at Gurney’s Resort and Spa on Labor Day weekend. A woman grabbed a hat from a display, the shopowner told police, and tossed it to a friend seated on a couch nearby; the two then left the premises, hat in hand. The owner, Hayley Denman, said it was a cheap hat, but that not long after, one of the women had returned and dropped a $5,400 diamond butterfly necklace into her purse before fleeing. The women, who will be charged with grand larceny if found, were last seen getting into an Uber.

This is the last weekend of the year that East Hampton Town beaches will have lifeguards. Lifeguards will protect East Hampton Village beaches during weekends until Columbus Day, Oct. 10.

East Hampton Town Justice Court records show several defendants recently paid their fines after being arrested in late August or early September of last year.

“Todd” was the only identity a man would give when police found him sleeping in the doorway of Stella and Ruby, a children’s clothing store on Main Street in Sag Harbor, last Thursday night. Todd, who said he had come from the city to look for work, was told he couldn’t sleep in the street.

Seven men, all of them in their 30s or 40s, were charged last week with drunken driving. One allegedly damaged several pieces of property before being arrested.

An East Meadow woman whose 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee was stopped on Sept. 7 near CVS on Pantigo Road in East Hampton Village for lacking tail lamps and brake lights was later charged with two misdemeanors for driving without a license.

A 17-foot Boston Whaler caught fire just off the Cedar Island lighthouse by Cedar Point at around 11 a.m. on Sunday, causing its sole occupant, Larry Kane of East Hampton, to dive off approximately 150 feet from the shore. Seconds after he jumped off, he said, the boat was engulfed in flames.

Joseph Grippo was sentenced on Wednesday to 20 years in prison plus five years of supervised release, the outcome of the legal proceedings stemming from his deadly attack on Robert Casado on a Kirk Park trail in Montauk in June 2019.

After The Star reported on David Plotkin’s heart attack on July 30 and his subsequent save by a team of lifeguards, others stepped forward with important details showing that even more people than originally thought played a role in that dramatic save.

An accident in Springs on the evening of Aug. 31 was one of two recent incidents on local roads that resulted in injuries.

Driving in the center turning lane, avoiding a deer and striking a guardrail, failing to maintain a lane, and a traffic accident led to driving while intoxicated charges for four people recently.

Blue-claw crabs, copper catalytic converters, and . . . used cooking oil? Opportunistic thieves have gotten creative in their pursuit of ill-gotten gains in these inflationary times, but used cooking oil does not immediately spring to mind as a high-ticket product worthy of theft. It is a big problem on Long Island and one that visited the East End in recent weeks in a crime wave that hit numerous local and regional restaurants, including Harvest on Fort Pond in Montauk and the Lobster Roll on Napeague.

The Suffolk County District Attorney is set to dismiss all eight charges against Pat Mansir, a past vice chairwoman of the East Hampton Independence Party and a former East Hampton Town councilwoman.

East Hampton Marine Patrol has received multiple reports of illegal shellfish poaching from concerned citizens since late August, following a front-page article in this newspaper highlighting the growing problem in local waters. Several reports could not be confirmed, but a number of others did make the police log, and were recorded as violations.

A complaint about “a structure constructed out of trash” brought police to a beach between Big Albert’s Landing and the pier at the Bell Estate on Aug. 26, where they found a small structure made from driftwood, painted in different colors.

A Florida man was charged on the evening of Aug. 28 with third-degree criminal mischief after he allegedly punched out a port-side window of a boat at the Viking Fleet dock on West Lake Drive in Montauk.

Three cases involving East Hampton residents arrested last summer have been wrapped up in East Hampton Town Justice Court.

The couple who own the Noyac rental house where two young women died in a fire on Aug. 3 together face 58 building code violations in Southampton Town Justice Court, including charges that “no fewer than three” smoke alarms weren’t working, a town official has confirmed.

A Sag Harbor man was charged last Thursday evening with felony assault on a police officer after police tried to arrest him on charges of driving while intoxicated.

East Hampton Village was again the scene of an outbreak of criminally mischievous painting last week, following a spate of spray-painting and graffiti two weeks ago.

A Bronxville, N.Y., woman allegedly drove a 2016 Land Rover into a 2015 Toyota on the morning of Aug. 23, during a dispute over a parking spot at the Pantigo Road CVS.

He hit a tree and was found "unresponsive and having difficulty breathing," then police said they found three small plastic bags of a “white rock-like substance,” later determined to be cocaine, in the car.

When David Plotkin collapsed while biking on Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett, bystanders and lifeguards jumped into action, helping to perform CPR for 15 minutes as they waited for an ambulance. That Mr. Plotkin survived is thanks to their quick action.

Marlene Julie Pabon of the Bronx, 40, was charged on the morning of Aug. 16 with menacing a police officer after she allegedly brandished an eight-inch folding knife at him.

Another late-night car accident has rattled residents of Hampton Street (Route 114) in Sag Harbor. Early Saturday morning, near a curve in the road at Division Street, an 18-year-old was charged with driving while intoxicated after flipping his car onto another that was parked in its owners' driveway. The incident echoed several other crashes in the same vicinity. 

Four men were charged with driving while intoxicated on local roads over the past weekend.

Leandre Hadden of Philadelphia was fishing last week for porgies and sea bass off Block Island, on the Fin Chaser party boat out of Star Island Yacht Club, Montauk, when he discovered $970 had gone missing from his person.

A teenage get-together Sunday night on Arbor Path wasn't what a mother signed up for when she gave her two daughters permission to have some friends over. She returned from a night out to a house full of juveniles who wouldn't leave.

Among arrests in town last week was one in Montauk involving an East Hampton Town traffic control officer.

An unlicensed 16-year-old from Montauk was eastbound on Montauk Highway in Amagansett just before midnight on Sunday when, she later told East Hampton Town police, she felt a pain in her head and either passed out or fell asleep at the wheel.