Police & Courts

After receiving a complaint last Thursday night concerning a sexual relationship between a 26-year-old man and a minor under the age of 17, East Hampton Town police arrested Byron Torres of Daniel's Hole Road in Wainscott on charges of statutory rape. Contact between the two, police said, was from around Feb. 1 to April 30.

"We're grateful that the small fire at the restaurant last week caused only minimal damage and everyone is safe, thanks to our local firefighters who acted quickly," a spokesperson for the restaurant said yesterday. "We're working closely with the Town of East Hampton . . . to reopen better than ever by Memorial Day weekend. We'll know the exact date shortly of our reopening next week, and will share on @mobysny once we're able to confirm."

When a woman was dropped off unresponsive in the foyer of East Hampton Town police headquarters in Wainscott in February of last year, "that was my first experience of something like that," said Detective Michael Coleman, one of the officers who rushed to the front of the building.

David Wisner, the low-flying pilot who was charged with second-degree reckless endangerment after buzzing Sag Harbor at around 5:30 p.m. on April 13 and, minutes before that, areas of Springs, was arraigned on May 7 in Sag Harbor Village Justice Court for the alleged misdemeanor. Mr. Wisner's 90-day ban from East Hampton Airport is ongoing. Court conferences begin on July 2; meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration is still investigating the incident.

The second jetty at Georgica Beach was slippery on Friday morning, to which the man who fell and pulled a muscle in his right quad might attest. He called in to ask for help getting off the beach, “so he could get medical attention on his own,” police said.

Two men were ticketed for allegedly driving while intoxicated in East Hampton Town this week.

Town police reported the arrest of a man in East Hampton on the morning on April 27 on a misdemeanor charge of driving a vehicle not equipped with an interlock device, which is needed to turn over the engine of a car driven by someone previously convicted for driving while intoxicated.

With the onset of warmer weather, once again comes news of rental scams on the South Fork. One was reported in Montauk this week.

The sentencing of a former Long Island Radio Broadcasting executive for credit card fraud has been postponed while the defense and prosecution dispute the amount of money involved in the crime.

Eastbound Montauk Highway in Water Mill reopened at approximately 10:30 a.m. Monday following a crash involving a motorcycle, according to Lt. Susan Ralph of the Southampton Town Police Department. Injuries were minor, she said.

David Wisner, the pilot who flew his single-engine airplane in what local police have called "a dangerous and reckless manner over Sag Harbor Village" on April 13, has been charged with second-degree reckless endangerment and been suspended for 90 days from using East Hampton Airport.

One airplane-related arrest last week, covered separately on this page, was the only break from the usual reports of road-related incidents.

A Highway Behind the Pond resident was ticketed last Thursday for draining his pool water onto his neighbor's property, on Earth Day no less.

Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini announced Thursday that a drug trafficking ring based in Riverhead -- which investigators say also sold cocaine and other illegal substances in the Hamptons and in Brookhaven Town -- has been busted, landing 12 people in court.

This week, police arrested two drivers who were behind the wheel when they should not have been. Bonnie Rychlak, 69, of East Hampton was charged with both driving while intoxicated and having .08 of 1 percent alcohol or more in her blood on the night of April 11 when she hit and injured a bicyclist on Old Stone Highway near La Foret Lane, police said.

A plane that flew as low as 50 feet above houses and businesses in Sag Harbor last week and prompted numerous 911 calls, may lead to a criminal charge for its pilot, David J. Wisner of East Hampton.

A man was sitting on the train tracks near the East Hampton Railroad Station, a 911 caller reported on Tuesday evening. A responding officer found the man who said he lived in Riverhead standing on a sidewalk. He explained that he had been waiting for a bus and said he would stay off the tracks.

In a three-car evening mix-up on April 14 at Cedar Street and Stephen Hand's Path in East Hampton, an 18-year-old East Hampton driver identified by police as W.A. Minchalabernal was injured after his car hit another vehicle and then struck a tree.

A federal grand jury has indicted two members of Montauk's Gosman family and a commercial fishing boat owner on charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and obstructing an investigation in connection with a scheme to sell at least $250,000 in illegally caught fluke and black sea bass. The United States Department of Justice announced the indictment on April 21.

Mitchell Alfus, 69, of Wainscott was arrested and arraigned April 6 on misdemeanor charges of criminal obstruction of breathing and injuring a child less than 17 years old.

With warmer weather on the way and the increasing availability of vaccines, more vehicles are out on the roads, and with them come a small but increasing number of alcohol-related arrests.

A Miller Lane resident's receipt on Friday of a phony call purporting to be from the Internal Revenue Service prompted the East Hampton Police Department to advise the community that "the I.R.S. never contacts anyone by phone, so don't give any personal information."

A brush fire steadily crept across 3 acres at the northern edge of the Maidstone Gun Club in Wainscott on Saturday starting around noon. According to East Hampton Fire Department Chief Gerry Turza, a pilot approaching the East Hampton Town Airport called it in, which he said happens every once in a while.

Paulo Molina of East Elmhurst and Amil Soyos-Chamale of Riverhead were both charged with unlicensed operation and will be in East Hampton Justice Court on Wednesday and on Friday, April 16, respectively.

A Muir Boulevard woman who was trying to rent a place on Gann Road nearby lost a large amount of money last month in a scam. It began when a man on Craigslist told her to send $600 for an application.

Headed east on Montauk Highway in Amagansett last Thursday, 18-year-old Melissa Fallo of Hampton Bays "turned her attention" to the gas station near Oak Lane, according to a police report, and rear-ended a 2019 Mercedes van that had stopped to turn left into the lane. The driver of the van, 19-year-old Kevin Verdugo-Parraâ was taken to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital by Springs ambulance to be treated for neck pain.

"He ran over them like rag dolls and left them there," the victim's husband, Wilson Murillo, said outside Suffolk County Supreme Court on Thursday, of Mark A. Corrado, who is accused of striking Yuris Murillo Cruz and her two children in a borrowed pickup truck on Jan. 13 and then fleeing the scene of the accident.

A New York County Supreme Court judge has denied Charles Streep's motion to dismiss a civil case brought against him by David Peralta following an August altercation between the two men in East Hampton that left the teenage Mr. Peralta with what his attorney describes as life-altering brain injuries. The judge, Barbara Jaffe, granted Mr. Streep's motion to dismiss charges of negligence, and stayed the civil case while the criminal one in Riverhead is underway.

A gray Chevrolet in the Apple Bank parking lot appeared suspicious last Thursday afternoon to a woman who called police to say it had been there "for quite some time." A man seated at the wheel refused when she asked him to leave, she said. An officer arrived and spoke to him, and the man stated that "he had an important phone call and this was the only place in the area where he had good service."

Adrian Pizarro, a 29-year-old from Sag Harbor, was driving a 2002 gold Ford on Saturday night when Sag Harbor Village police caught up with him on Swamp Road near Route 114 for failing to maintain his lane. That proved to be the week's only alcohol-related arrest. Police reported that Mr. Pizarro's unsatisfactory performance on roadside sobriety tests was followed by a night in custody. He appeared in the morning before Justice Lisa R. Rana; it was his first such arrest.