Police & Courts

A 28-year-old Amagansett woman was arrested Friday afternoon on felony charges of larceny, stemming from a Feb. 15 incident at the M&T Bank branch on Newtown Lane in East Hampton Village.

On Feb. 26, a few minutes before midnight, an officer patrolling Sag Harbor's Long Wharf discovered that a car had smashed into a wooden guardrail. Surveillance camera footage revealed that the damage was caused by a driver who, the very next day but in an unrelated incident, was charged with driving while intoxicated.

“Artistic vandalism.” That’s how a police officer initially described the carved tree trunk he found late Saturday night in the parking lot of Amagansett’s Big Albert’s Beach, while patrolling the area for illegal dumping, which has been a problem for police lately.

A 16-year-old girl from Massachusetts accidentally hit the gas pedal too hard while making a three-point turn on South Essex Street near South Etna Avenue in Montauk on Feb. 20, causing her minivan to crash through a split-rail fence, drop off an eight-foot ledge, and land upside down.

A woman using her backyard hot tub on Hand’s Creek Road was accused by a neighbor Sunday morning of being naked outdoors. When police arrived to investigate the report of a “nude person,” the woman answered the door wearing a bathing suit and towel. “No police action necessary,” the officer concluded.

Two men were charged with felony drunken driving over the last two weeks, one in Amagansett and the other in Sag Harbor.

Scott Frankenbach, a Sag Harbor Village police officer, was named the village’s Officer of the Year. “He’s been an asset to us ever since he was hired,” said Lt. Robert Drake.

Five cars were ticketed on the evening of Feb. 14 for parking illegally on Church Street near Buell Lane, in the vicinity of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton Village, following a complaint from a nearby resident. There was an Ash Wednesday service taking place at the time.

East Hampton's Officer of the Year award is given in memory of Sgt. Ryan P. Lynch, who died of cancer in 2005 after serving on the town force for 10 years. For 2023, the honoree is Officer William Hamilton.

Driving while intoxicated, usually a misdemeanor, is elevated to a felony charge when a child is in the vehicle at the time, under New York State's Leandra's Law.

On Saturday, police and firefighters were notified of a “liquid spill” and shattered glass in front of the Empire Gas Station on North Main Street. It turned out that a delivery truck driver had lost “an entire case of Corona beers, which shattered into the roadway.” The driver cleaned up the mess himself.

A Bridgehampton man was charged with two first-degree felonies, “criminal sex act by forcible compulsion” and criminal contempt, following an incident at a house on Accabonac Road in East Hampton.