Police & Courts

In arrests this week, one person was accused of stealing from the Inter Deli in East Hampton, another of criminal possession of fentanyl and driving while intoxicated, and third of sexual abuse.

People see firefighters in their trucks, police officers writing tickets, and ambulances streaking by, but they don’t see the public safety dispatchers, who coordinate any emergency response in East Hampton Town and are also specially trained to give guidance over the phone on everything from CPR to childbirth to electrocution and even getting a car out of submerged water.

A flurry of mid-September overnight car break-ins in Montauk, Amagansett, and Springs has had victims and residents taking to social media to bemoan an apparently organized racket and warn others about the incidents. Police say they’re on the case but have no suspects.

A dog left alone in a Porsche prompted a wellness check on Sept. 20 after its owner went into John Papas Cafe to pick up a food order. Someone called police, who arrived and said the dog was fine.

Jamal Johns of Newark is the latest defendant to accept a plea deal for his part in a March robbery at the East Hampton Balenciaga, when five people made off with $94,000 worth of handbags from the luxe Newtown Lane retail shop.

An early morning car crash on Woods Lane in East Hampton Village on Monday ground traffic to a halt for four hours and sent Delvair Dias, 73, to Stony Brook Hospital. East Hampton Fire Department personnel utilizing the jaws of life extricated Mr. Dias from his severely damaged vehicle.

Local police made two drunken-driving arrests in the town last week and one in the village.

Daniel Campbell, the 20-year-old driver in an August 2021 hit-and-run in Amagansett that claimed the life of 18-year-old Devesh Samtani, "will not be sentenced on Thursday," Tania Lopez, a Suffolk County district attorney spokeswoman, said. The Samtani family, frustrated that the judge had said Mr. Campbell would get no jail time, has hired a high-profile defense lawyer to plead their case that he should in fact spend some time in prison for his actions. 

Daniel Campbell's sentencing hearing in the Amagansett hit-and-run case that led to the death of Devesh Samtani in August 2021 was pushed off to Nov. 3, and an attorney for the Samtani family believes the judge could rescind his no-jail offer.

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.