Police & Courts

A contractor hired for an East Hampton Town public works project in 2017 has pleaded guilty to underpaying his employees and falsifying payroll records, Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini announced Friday.

Details continued to emerge this week about the Amagansett accident that claimed the life of Yuris Murillo Cruz, 36. She died on Jan. 13 at Stony Brook University Hospital, having been flown there by a county medevac helicopter along with her 1-year-old son, Josue Gael, and her daughter, Michelle, 4, both of whom were taken to the pediatric intensive care unit.

An argument ensued at Starbucks on Friday morning after an employee asked a man to put on his mask. The man told police that "he had it on, but it keeps falling down." The report also noted that "he was leaving to catch the bus."

David Peralta, the Springs teenager injured last August in what police called a "road rage" incident, stood with a dozen or so family members and friends Thursday morning across the street from the Pondview Lane house in East Hampton Village where Charles Streep lives part time. The group demanded that Mr. Streep, who faces both civil and criminal charges in the incident, "show up" in person next time the case comes up in East Hampton Town Justice Court.

Southampton Town police are searching for a 58-year-old man who lives in Hampton Bays and Massapequa who has been missing since Sunday evening.

Public visiting hours for Yuris Murillo Cruz are from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday at Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A funeral Mass will be said at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church on Tuesday at 2 p.m.

The East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, in a virtual presentation last week, honored a number of its members who not only coped with Covid but went beyond.

East Hampton Town police arrested a West Babylon man who they said raced away from the scene of an accident in Amagansett on Wednesday in which a 36-year-old woman was struck and killed while walking her two children in a stroller on the side of Montauk Highway.

A roadside memorial now marks the place on Route 27 where Yuris Murillo Cruz was walking with her two young children on Wednesday when they were struck by a red pickup truck that fled the scene. Ms. Murillo Cruz died from her injuries, and now community members are mobilizing to help the family.

A Springs man, Jeriel Rivera-Carrero, was charged on Jan. 3 with felony driving while intoxicated, the only such arrest to be reported last week.

A man believed to have stolen over $100,000 worth of jewelry from five houses while he worked as a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning technician was arrested by East Hampton Town Police on Wednesday. 

Six unwanted skateboarders were reported Saturday afternoon to be whizzing around the Apple Bank property at the intersection of Main and Spring Streets. They were leaving when police arrived.

A surge in real estate sales continues to produce record-breaking revenues for the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund.

East Hampton Town police, aided by a Suffolk Police helicopter crew, were searching Wednesday afternoon for a driver who fled a hit-and-run accident involving as many as three pedestrians that took place just before noon on Route 27 in Amagansett.

Emergency medical service personnel on the South Fork reported this week that 911 call volume was down in 2020 as a whole but up in the usually quiet months of November and December. "People are, I think, afraid to go in the ambulance to the hospital, so things we normally see, we're not seeing people calling for," said Deborah O'Brien, president of the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

There was only one arrest on drunken-driving charges in East Hampton Town last week. On Saturday afternoon, town police reported clocking Luis Sigua-Sisalima's green 2005 Kia minivan at 59 miles per hour in a 30-m.p.h. zone on Abraham's Path in East Hampton, near Accabonac Highway.

James Allman, 70, of Sagaponack was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital via a county medevac helicopter on Saturday around midnight, following a traffic accident at the intersection of Montauk Highway and Wainscott Northwest Road in Wainscott.

Nine callers from all around town reported the sound of gunshots this week, signaling the start of 2021's open hunting season.

The East Hampton Town Police Department congratulated Sgt. Peter Schmitt last week on his retirement after more than 24 years on the force.

Two fires this week, one in a house and the other in a trailer, were swiftly handled by the East Hampton Fire Department, both in under an hour.

When East Hampton Town police responded last week to a minor rear-ender accident on Montauk Highway by Buckskill Road, they found that Johnny Rojas Orellana of East Hampton, whose car was hit, had been driving without a license. He will appear in court on Jan. 6.

"It was a very different summer," said John Ryan Jr. Covid ensured that there were indeed unprecedented logistical differences, but nothing about the commitment of East Hampton Town's lifeguards had changed.

Christmas Day was not so merry for Manuel Pena-Tacuri, 32, of Montauk Highway in Amagansett, who was spotted there that morning drinking while driving his 2021 GMC, according to East Hampton Town police.

A red Specialized Fuse bicycle was last seen on Nov. 28 leaning against a fuel pump at the town marina on Three Mile Harbor. Brett Nicholson said he had special-ordered it from Khanh Sports for $2,700.

For many people, 2020 has been challenging, but as the chief of the East Hampton Ambulance Association, Lisa Charde has led a team of volunteers and professional paramedics in harrowing conditions. 

At the Buckskill Tennis and Winter Club on Saturday night, a man told police he'd fallen on the ice close by a young girl, scaring her. Her father then "got in his face," yelling at him for skating too close to his daughter, and "told him to grow up," the report said. The man said the father grabbed him, and while trying to push him away he struck him in the face.

Mary Murphy-Ballreich of East Hampton, 47, was arrested on Dec. 2 at the East Hampton Veterinary Group on a misdemeanor charge of "torturing or injuring animals/failure to provide sustenance."

After 31 years with the East Hampton Town Police Department, 26 of them leading the DARE program in schools, Officer Kim Notel's retirement on Tuesday was the start of a new era, not just for her but for everyone who knew "Officer Kim" in the classrooms and on the roads.

"Lewd acts" were reported taking place in the back of a dark sedan behind the Division Street hardware store on the evening of Dec. 9, but the car was gone when an officer arrived to investigate.

Manuel Tenen-guanga of Southampton, 30, was arrested twice last Thursday.