Police & Courts

Dramatic rescues may grab the most attention, but lifeguards in East Hampton Town and Village save more swimmers each week than the average beachgoer might realize.

Aiste Lukoseviciute of Montauk, 21, was sitting in the dunes at Kirk Beach Park on July 17 around 7 p.m. when a shot went off and hit her in the back of the head. East Hampton Town police found her bleeding heavily as a result of the shooting, which she initially thought had been a firework of some sort thrown in her direction.

A mini-sweep of underage alcohol sales at Montauk establishments on Saturday yielded misdemeanor charges for employees of two popular downtown watering holes.

Two accidents on East Hampton Town roads this week resulted in injuries.

Three people were charged with drunken driving on local roads within the last two weeks.

It has been nearly a year since the hit-and-run accident that caused the death of a Hong Kong teenager on a dark road in Amagansett, and the man behind the wheel could learn his fate as soon as Friday in Suffolk County Criminal Court.

On July 26, a woman who was said to be "tying plastic bags to village benches" left a "garbage-filled shopping cart" on a Gingerbread Lane sidewalk. Police canvassed the area but could not find her.

Jay Rowe of Springs, convicted in March of armed robbery, grand larceny, and kidnapping, turned himself in to officials at Suffolk Criminal Court in Riverside on Monday. According to East Hampton Town Police Capt. Chris Anderson, Mr. Rowe had failed to show up at his July 27 sentencing hearing.

Two sisters from Potomac, Md., visiting here with their family, died early Wedneday morning in a house fire on Spring Lane, off Noyac Road in Noyac. Lt. Susan Ralph of the Southampton Town police said the other members of the family were able to escape from the rented house. The son leapt from a second-floor window, she said.

Town police on Sunday arrested a Queens Village woman who they allege is responsible for the disappearance of 23 dozen eggs from the outdoor Iacono Farm stand on Long Lane.

Tinder-dry conditions and spiking temperatures were only two of the challenges firefighters faced as they worked to extinguish a brushfire that burned some 20 to 25 acres of grasslands in Hither Hills State Park on Friday night and then rekindled on Saturday. Equally challenging was the fire’s difficult-to-reach location between Goff Point and the Walking Dunes, more than a mile from any paved road.

Zane Kitburi had only lived in Montauk for about a month, trading his longtime bartending position at Indochine, a popular Vietnamese restaurant in New York City, for jobs at the Surf Lodge and Roberta’s.

A man and a woman, and a group of their friends, told police they’d been thrown out of the bar at the Memory Motel for no good reason. Witnesses, however, told the officers they’d taken videos of the incident, which police said showed the woman fighting with a bouncer after he tried to eject her intoxicated male friend.

Several recent accidents on local roads involved young drivers.

Update: A difficult-to-reach brushfire in state parkland between the Walking Dunes and Goff Point at the western edge of Hither Woods burned 20 to 25 acres of grassland Friday night, according to Montauk Fire Chief Scott Snow. At 1:25 p.m. Saturday, East Hampton emergency dispatch confirmed that the fire had reignited.

Randall Crater "saw the burgeoning popularity of crypto as a chance to get rich quick through an unscrupulous fraud scheme cloaked by flashy marketing tactics and outright lies," a federal prosecutor said Thursday in announcing Mr. Crater's conviction on charges of wire fraud and other illegal monetary transactions. His trial was held in U.S. District Court in Boston.

High summer, with its attendant apocalyptic traffic and legion of flustered motorists, hit its stride this week as numerous vehicular accidents were logged by police. Victims included a tree, a deer, a utility pole, and a shopping cart.

A photographer told police Saturday afternoon that he was being harassed by someone who also worked as a paparazzo. He felt “threatened and scared,” he said, claiming that the man was following his car to events to take his own photos. The accused man told police he was just another paparazzo doing his job.

Sag Harbor police charged a woman with four drug-related misdemeanors after she was allegedly caught shoplifting at Love Shack Fancy, a Main Street shop, on the afternoon of July 11.

Three motorists were charged this week with driving while intoxicated, all three charges first-offense misdemeanors.

Benjamin Z. Kitburi was already unconscious when he was pulled from the water shortly after 7:30 p.m. by three nearby surfers, according to East Hampton Town police.

Joseph Grippo of Montauk, facing a trial for murder, took a plea deal on Monday to first-degree manslaughter for the killing of Robert Casado three years ago. 

Three men from away and two residents were charged over the past week with driving while intoxicated.

One hit-and-run collision was among this week's traffic accidents in Springs, East Hampton, and Montauk.

East Hampton Village officials called police on July 5 to report litter scattered along Buell Lane between Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church and the library — cups, water bottles, and other detritus. A caterer was initially suspected, but was eventually vindicated. Public Works employees came by to clean up the mess.

A confrontation over a parking spot at the Meadow Street lot in Sag Harbor led last Thursday to the arrest of an East Hampton woman.

East Hampton Village police on Sunday arrested six people affiliated with a Tax the Rich protest that traveled east from Southampton Village over the course of the weekend. Town police arrested six more people on Monday; all are facing charges of disorderly conduct, a violation.

According to the Southampton Town Police Department, an 11-year-old boy was struck by a pickup truck and killed on Townline Road in Sagaponack at 5:28 p.m. last Thursday.

Dr. Russell Windsor of Amagansett, a 70-year-old orthopedic surgeon, had been cycling in the vicinity of the Lobster Roll when, police said, he veered from the shoulder into the eastbound lane of traffic and was hit. As police investigated, Montauk Highway was closed for several hours in both directions.

The second big holiday weekend of the season brought with it numerous arrests for drunken driving, both in East Hampton Town and Sag Harbor Village.