With the annual influx of summer renters about to begin, East Hampton Town’s Ordinance Enforcement Division is cracking down on homeowners who would disregard the zoning-based laws that prohibit shared houses.

The town put the kibosh on several potential group rentals recently after a two-month investigation. A search of websites, newspaper ads, and other outlets has resulted to date in a total of 85 charges of zoning code violations at four properties. Eight individuals or corporations were cited.

Under the town code, operating a share house is defined as “the selling of shares or establishment of tenancy in which individuals obtain rights of occupancy in individual bedrooms, or rights to occupy all or part of the residence on particular days of the week, specified weekends or other similar terms.” According to a release from the town, it “severely impacts neighbors and leads to complaints of environmental impact from litter, debris, and septic overload, as well as issues relative to excessive noise and vehicle parking.” 

Aaron Monet and John Shub each face 10 charges of selling shares for a house at 25 Old Montauk Highway in Amagansett, where a two-car garage, according to Betsy Bambrick, East Hampton’s director of ordinance enforcement, “had been converted to a fully functional cottage for two people without the benefit of a building permit, subsequent inspections, or certificate of occupancy.” The garage conversion produced five separate zoning-related charges.

Allen Salkin and Nicholas Contos received 10 counts each for offering shares at 55 Hand Lane in Amagansett, and Bernice Papia was charged with 10 counts for a prohibited use in a single-family residence: selling shares, excessive turnover, and partial occupancy of 32 Atlantic Street in East Hampton. A limited-liability corporation, 23 Atlantic, was similarly charged as owner of the property. 

Sophie Wilhelm and 145 Neck Path L.L.C., the corporate owner of a house at that address, also face 10 counts apiece for share house violations. All the defendants are scheduled for arraignment on May 18.

“It is our intention to closely monitor these and other locations over the summer and take appropriate action should there be further violations of the Town Code,” Ms. Bambrick stated in the release. 

“Tackling illegal occupancy and excessive turnover in summer rentals remains a high priority for the Town of East Hampton,” added Supervisor Larry Cantwell. “I hope this latest action by our Code Enforcement Department will send a strong message to others who may feel tempted to violate our town code.”

When Catherine Mottola-King erected a Little Free Library on her front lawn — described on the website of the organization promoting them as a “ ‘take a book, return a book’ neighborhood gathering place” — she didn’t expect the overwhelming response she got after announcing it on Facebook.

People from all over East Hampton left comments lauding the idea and expressing hopes that it would grow.

“I had seen them around and I thought it was fun,” said Ms. Mottola-King, a school librarian in Wantagh who lives in the Clearwater section of Springs. She is home on maternity leave, and decided that, with some time on her hands, now was the time to set up the book-borrowing station.

With the help of her husband and a friend, who built the little schoolhouse-style box on a post, she installed it on her front lawn at 17 Rutland Road and stocked it with extras from her own collection of fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books.

On Tuesday morning, looking out the window while having breakfast, she had her first “customer,” she said — a jogger who stopped to make a selection, then sprinted away, book in hand.

The Little Free Library movement began in Wisconsin in 2009 when a son built a schoolhouse model in tribute to his mother, a former schoolteacher, and set it up with a sign saying “Free Books.” The concept grew, with a goal of promoting literacy and a love of reading by erecting 2,510 tiny libraries, one more than the number of free public libraries supported by Andrew Carnegie at the turn of the century. A nonprofit organization was established, and by January of this year, it was estimated that there were at least 25,000 Little Free Libraries all around the world. 

After she registers with the group, Ms. Mottola-King’s library will add to the number, and be adorned by a plaque. A map of all the Little Free Libraries, and tips for establishing one, can be found at littlefreelibrary.org.

Ms. Mottola-King’s 3-year-old son, Nathaniel, “couldn’t be more excited about it,” she said, helping his mom with “our own little library” and feeling like “we’re real librarians now.”

Six years ago, doctors told Soozy Miller there was no cure for her son’s attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but that answer did not sit right with her.

She launched into research mode, determined to find natural alternatives to the medications that doctors wanted her son, then 6 years old, to take. What she found changed her son’s life, and her own, too. Ms. Miller, of East Hampton, has now documented her process and results in a new ebook, “ADHD to Honor Roll: How I Cured My Child’s ADHD Without Drugs (And You Can, Too!).”

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder affects 9 percent of children ages 13 to 18, with an average age of onset at age 7. The organization reports young boys are more likely to have A.D.H.D. than young girls. According to the institute, the condition also appears to be increasing in frequency, but it is unclear why that is.

For Ms. Miller’s son, whom she calls Charles in the book to protect his privacy, it turned out that one answer lay in a food that’s getting a lot of attention these days: sugar. Its effect, she said, was becoming toxic to her son, and changing that required detoxification and strict dietary changes.

“I didn’t know the depth to which it was linked to other issues,” Ms. Miller said last month.

Another answer required finding the right medical help. That came courtesy of Dr. Caroline Fierro, a functional medicine physician based in Southampton. Ms. Miller said Dr. Fierro was able to get to the bottom of the situation.

“Each patient has unique differences in their need for individualized nutrients and how their environment affects them,” Dr. Fierro said in an email. “This allows my patients to function at their best and heal as many negative processes in their bodies.”

Dr. Fierro also said it is also important to have a parent who is “willing to go through the healing process with their child.”

“This requires lifestyle changes and the ability to teach their child how these changes can positively impact their healing and well-being,” she said. “I have found that in dealing with A.D.H.D. children this approach is extremely helpful.”

Before Ms. Miller began to manage her son’s condition through his diet, she described his behavior as troubling — even, sometimes, violent. He couldn’t focus on schoolwork or other tasks that required concentration, had difficulty playing quietly, and was often fidgety. He had been sent to the principal’s office in school for kicking a teacher, and on one occasion, Ms. Miller found herself sobbing while her son repeatedly smashed his baseball bat into his bedroom door.

“That was him at his worst — blind anger, not able to think straight,” she said.

Fast forward six years, and Ms. Miller reports Charles has made a remarkable turnaround. He can focus, do his homework independently, and has even earned a spot on his school’s honor roll.

“I know that he’s maturing. He’s developing into a kid who is thinking things through,” Ms. Miller said.

She said her son’s lifestyle changes still require maintenance, and the process can be uncomfortable. She said she hopes “ADHD to Honor Roll” helps inspire other parents whose children have the condition.

“People should consider a natural remedy,” Ms. Miller said. “The natural cures are there.”

Mario Fernando Mayorga, who grew up in Springs and graduated from East Hampton High School in 2013, died on April 24 after being hit by a truck in North Carolina, where he was attending college. He was 19 years old.

The sophomore student at High Point University was on foot when he was hit by a Toyota Tundra on a Greensboro highway after a night out. The driver stopped shortly after the impact, and, with another driver who stopped to protect the body from being hit again, called 911.

Police had received a few 911 calls from drivers about a woman walking in the roadway shortly before the accident was reported. Troopers believe the person drivers had called about was actually Mr. Mayorga — that portion of the road was not well lit, said the lead investigator, North Carolina State Highway Patrol Master Trooper P.J. Mitchell. No charges are being filed against the driver.

Emergency medical personnel tried to resuscitate Mr. Mayorga, but he was pronounced dead at Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro on Friday at 1:37 a.m. His family was not notified of his death until Saturday, after they reported him missing when they were unable to reach him. He had a fake ID on him.

On Monday, Trooper Mitchell met with Mr. Mayorga’s parents, Nelly Vera and Orlando Mayorga, both of whom live in Patchogue, and his aunt, uncle, and a cousin in Greensboro. He took them to the scene of the accident. “They wanted to do a memorial on the shoulder of the road. They put some long-stem roses on the asphalt where he passed away at. A dozen or so roses in a vase in the water and placed it on the shoulder,” he said.

Mr. Mayorga’s mother cried and rubbed an area of the asphalt where his dried blood was left behind, encircled by orange spray paint that Trooper Mitchell had used to take measurements in the investigation. “The father, he knelt down and tried to comfort her, and he was crying, also,” he said. “That’s the worst part of my job. I got choked up, and I actually just turned away.”

Trooper Mitchell said police have ascertained that Mr. Mayorga had been in an altercation at a nightclub late last Thursday night. “He was intoxicated. He was placed into a cab by schoolmates – not friends – people that knew him. The cab was paid for. The driver was told to take him to the university,” Trooper Mitchell said.

During the 25-minute drive to High Point, Mr. Mayorga tried to get out of the cab several times, the cab driver told police. The cab driver pulled over on the shoulder of Interstate 85 because Mr. Mayorga was feeling sick, and he got out and threw up, the trooper said. “He wouldn’t get back inside the car, and she drove off,” Trooper Mitchell said.

Police are awaiting a report from the medical examiner’s office as to Mr. Mayorga’s blood alcohol level. The division of alcohol is also investigating the situation, as is the university, Trooper Mitchell said.

Back in East Hampton on Monday, word had already reached the high school, where Mr. Mayorga graduated with the class of 2013. Adam Fine, the principal at East Hampton High School, said he knew Mr. Mayorga very well. "He was the complete package. A great student and more importantly a great person," Mr. Fine wrote in an email. "His smile priceless."

Jacqueline Bates of East Hampton, a close friend of Mr. Mayorga's who considered him part of her family, said he always made her smile. He loved High Point University, and was constantly trying to recruit her to go there, she said.

"At Springs School, he was a natural helper, someone who assisted students and other community members when need be. He was a beacon of light for all those who knew him," Ms. Bates said, adding that she intends to start a scholarship in his name. As a high school student, Mr. Mayorga's accomplishments included taking part in the Harvard Model Congress in Cambridge, Mass. He was a part of the Century Club, the National Honor Society, and other school organizations.

He was also a recipient of the Twomey Latham Community Service Scholarship in 2013, which recognizes seniors "with outstanding achievements in community service and volunteer work in their communities." He was studying political science at High Point University, and had dreams of studying law at Georgetown University and becoming a lawyer, his cousin Ana Núñez said.

Ms. Bates set up a GoFundMe account to collect donations for Mr. Mayorga's family to defray funeral costs and any other needs the family may have. "Mario was a kind soul and deserves nothing but the best. I think I speak for the entire community when I say that he will be laid to rest knowing that he was loved and cherished by all," Ms. Bates said. In one day, she raised $3,665 of the $5,000 goal. By Tuesday, the amount reached over $6,000.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been finalized. Arrangements are being made through Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton, and his services will likely be at the end of the week or beginning of next week, with a Mass at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton.

Ms. Bates is planning a separate service for May or June so that all of his friends, most of whom are in the midst of final exams in college, can attend.

Meanwhile, a vigil was held at High Point University, where he was a member of the Kappa Alpha fraternity, on Saturday evening. The local Fox News station reported that his classmates placed flowers on his car and painted a rock on campus in his memory. The campus came together again on Monday for a memorial with his family in attendance, according to Pam Haynes, the director of media relations at the university. Students wore pink, his favorite color, in his honor.

When the automatic fire alarm inside the J. Crew clothing store building sounded in the early morning hours Friday, fire chiefs and police were summoned to Main Street like they are to the hundreds of false alarms that go off yearly throughout East Hampton. What might have been a routine matter turned out to be the real deal when they discovered the back of the store and a neighboring restaurant in flames. While firefighters were able to quickly extinguish the fire, the damage was already done in what was the first significant fire in the village business district in 30 years.

An electrical malfunction in the compressor on top of an outdoor refrigeration unit in the alley behind Rowdy Hall restaurant is believed to have started the blaze, said Ken Collum, the village fire marshal who investigated the cause. “We can’t be 100 percent sure,” he said yesterday. “It appears one of the units may have failed,” he said. There were three out back for extra storage.

He said it appears the fire spread from the refrigeration unit to “plastic Dumpsters and laundry bins” behind the restaurant at 10 Main Street. “Those got going and that’s what spread over to the building at 14 Main Street on the outside,” where J. Crew is located, Mr. Collum said. 

East Hampton Village police and the East Hampton Fire Department were called at 3:19 a.m. The building was already engulfed in flames, Chief Richard Osterberg Jr. said.

The chiefs called for help from the Amagansett, Springs, and Sag Harbor Fire Departments —- about 75 firefighters in all responded and Main Street was shut down. Attacking the flames from the alley and parking area behind the building and from J. Crew’s Main Street entrance, firefighters extinguished the fire within a half hour, a quick stop, the chief said, given the extent of the fire.

The building at 14 Main Street is freestanding but is in very close proximity to Optyx and Rowdy Hall, which share an address next door. “It just started getting into the second floor of the building to the north,” which is 10 Main Street, “but we stopped it from going in there,” Chief Osterberg said. Optyx sustained no damage. Rowdy Hall occupies the back part of the building. Had the fire alarm not sounded, the damage would have been far worse, the chief said.

While the fire started in back of Rowdy Hall, the J. Crew building took the brunt of the damage. Flames destroyed about 20 to 30 feet of the building from the back, fire officials said. “The whole back of the store is burnt off, and the rest of the store sustained heavy smoke damage,” Chief Osterberg said.

Asked why the damage was worse at the J. Crew building than Rowdy Hall, Mr. Collum pointed to the proximity of the two buildings and the fact that the building at 14 Main Street dates to the 1930s. “There’s only about eight inches of distance between Rowdy Hall and 14 Main Street,” he said. Flames from the bins caught the wood shingles on J. Crew’s building and with the old wood frame, the fire traveled fast. By today’s standards, the building did not meet fire code.

Just about a month before Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer on the East End, the fire shuttered two businesses. Representatives from J. Crew said employees have been temporarily reassigned to its Southampton location, while a temporary East Hampton location is sought for the summer. Rowdy Hall is moving to quickly clean up its space, which suffered damage to mechanical equipment and heavy smoke damage in the main part of the restaurant, but exactly when it will open remains unclear.

“I’d like to be able to give you a date, but unfortunately it’s one of these very organic situations,” said Mark Smith, a managing partner of the Honest Man Group, which owns Rowdy Hall and the sister restaurants La Fondita in Amagansett, Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton, and Townline BBQ in Sagaponack. “I’m hoping a few weeks, but I don’t think I can say with any amount of certainty an exact date.” After the cleanup, the restaurant will need approval from the Suffolk County Health Department to reopen.

Mr. Smith said he had not heard anything definitive on the cause of the fire and said there are four or so insurance companies, each with their own investigators, involved. “The investigation is still ongoing.”

Robert Ratteni, who has several other properties in the village, owned the J. Crew building under the name East Hampton 14 Main Street L.L.C. The building at 10 Main Street is owned by Parrish Mews Limited Partners L.L.C.

“The good news is nobody was hurt. None of the firefighters were hurt, no employees were hurt,” Mr. Smith said. “The rest of it is just time, aggravation, and money — not that I take any of that lightly, but relative to having to call somebody’s parents. . . .”

As the cleanup began on the backside of the buildings, from Main Street, it hardly seemed like anything had happened at all, save for the trail of soot running down the picture windows at J. Crew where mannequins remained dressed in spring dresses. Signs and white boards have since been hung over the windows thanking the firefighters for their quick response.

East Hampton Town police officers saved the lives of three people last week when they responded to very different medical emergencies. Calls had come in about a woman who was choking, a heroin overdose, and what turned out to be an apparent suicide attempt. 

“It’s why we train as much as we do,” Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo said yesterday as he described each of the cases and praised the officers for their able responses and quick thinking. The names of the persons whose lives were saved were not available.

The most dramatic incident occurred on Saturday at about 3:30 a.m. Police receive hundreds of 911 calls a year, most of which are accidental or routine. They nevertheless try to identify the source of each call to make certain there is no emergency, Chief Sarlo said.

This time, police received a 911 call, but the line went dead.

Police Officer Lisa Weitz, one of the most senior patrol officers in the department, responded, although the police dispatcher was unable to give her an exact location since the call had been made on a cellphone. The only information available was that the call had apparently come from the vicinity of Copeces Lane in Springs.

Aware that such information is often inaccurate, Officer Weitz nevertheless searched the area. Noticing a car in a driveway on Copeces Lane with its taillights on, she investigated and discovered the car’s engine was running with a tube connecting the exhaust to the interior of the vehicle. A man inside was attempting suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning and was unresponsive and barely breathing, Chief Sarlo said.

Police Officer Weitz pulled the man from the car and administered oxygen, also turning off the engine and disconnecting the hose. Springs Fire Department emergency medical service providers were called, and as they arrived he came to.

“When you go to one of these and save a life, it’s worthwhile,” Chief Sarlo said of the many 911 calls that are often a challenge.

Then, on Sunday evening at about 10:30, a report came in that 24-year-old man was suffering from an apparent life-threatening heroin overdose in a house on Washington Drive in Montauk. Police found the young man unresponsive with his breathing depressed.

Police Officer Joseph Izzo, whoin his spare time volunteers as an emergency medical technician with the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, arrived as did Officer Katie Izzo (his wife) and Officer Frank Sokolowski. It was Officer Izzo’s second emergency call last week.

They administered Narcan, a brand of naloxone that can reverse the effects of opioid drugs in a patient whose breathing rate is dangerously low. The patient became alert, and the Montauk Fire Department ambulance took him to Southampton Hospital. 

Police officers began carrying Narcan about a year ago. This was the second life town police had saved with the drug so far, Chief Sarlo said. “It may be the link that saves them from brain damage or death.” 

The earlier emergency to which Officer Izzo responded occurred at midday on April 20, also in Montauk. A 78-year-old woman at a residence on Monroe Drive had choked on food. When the officer arrived, at about 12:28 p.m., she was unresponsive and not breathing. He began cardiopulmonary resuscitation, as did Montauk Fire Department first responders. She regained a pulse en route to Southampton Hospital, and survived.

“Ultimately, the credit goes to Joe and the first responder” for early C.P.R., Chief Sarlo said.

Neither of the incidents last week was the first time Officer Izzo had saved a life. Along with Officer David Martin, he had helped resuscitate a man whose industrial lawn mower flipped over onto him in Montauk in 2014.

“I’m very proud of the work of these officers, and how it reflects on the training and professionalism of our agency,” the chief said. “It goes to show what may be considered a quieter time of year can also bring these kind of calls,” he said.

He noted that the emergencies happened on three different shifts and he credited the responding officers for “keeping their cool, utilizing their training, and working with the E.M.S. personnel to save three lives in six days.”

Services for Mario Fernando Mayorga, a 19-year-old college student who died after being hit by a truck in North Carolina on April 24, will be held on Sunday, his family said Friday morning.

Visiting hours will be at Yardley and Pino Funeral Home on Pantigo Road in East Hampton on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A Mass will be said on Sunday at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton at 4:30 p.m., followed by burial at Most Holy Trinity Cemetery. 

Mr. Mayorga grew up in Springs and graduated from East Hampton High School in 2013. He was a sophomore at High Point University in North Carolina when he was killed while walking on a dark highway in Greensboro.

What they lacked in numbers, they made up for in volume. A dozen activists rallied in support of marriage equality outside Incarnation Lutheran Church in Water Mill on Tuesday afternoon, the day the Supreme Court began hearing arguments as it prepares to rule on gay marriage.

“We may finally be equal,” said the Rev. Dr. Katrina Foster, the pastor at Incarnation Lutheran Church and St. Michael’s in Amagansett. “We may finally have the same joys and responsibilities as our heterosexual counterparts.”

As passing drivers honked their horns, Ms. Foster stood with signs alongside her wife, Pamela, their 12-year-old daughter, Zoia, several friends and acquaintances, and a few complete strangers, who arrived from the upstate town of Brewster to attend the rally.

“We’re sitting on the edge of our seats,” said one of them, Scott Barber Weiser. He said he and his husband of 10 years, David Weiser, are “trying to stay positive at this point. We think it’s going to happen.”

Leo Revi, an artist from East Hampton who attended the rally, also said he thinks “it” – meaning a ruling that strikes down some states’ bans on gay marriage as unconstitutional – is going to happen.

“My gut feeling says yes. I think the scale has tipped,” Mr. Revi said. “I’ll give you a Biblical quote. ‘God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. That means we’re all the same in God’s eyes.”

According to The New York Times, a Supreme Court ruling on the issue is expected in approximately two months.

Jason Lee, the former Goldman Sachs banker accused of raping an Irish woman at an East Hampton summer house in 2013, was found not guilty Wednesday afternoon after a non-jury trial that spanned three weeks.

State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Kahn, in handing down her verdict, said that the absence in court of the accuser's brother, who refused to return from Ireland to testify, had deprived her of a key prosecution witness. Saying further that the burden of proof is always on the prosecution, she said it was a burden that had not been met.

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said "every effort possible" had been made to convince the brother to come, but that "he gave excuses . . . with respect to his education."

Mr. Lee had entered the courthouse with his wife, Alicia Lee, holding hands, as they had each day of the trial. She left the courthouse Tuesday by herself, however. He left 20 minutes later.

His mother, who had been seated in the courtroom, broke down in tears when the verdict was announced.

Andrew M. Lankler, Mr. Lee's lead attorney, had summarized his case on Tuesday, listing several inconsistencies between the accuser's April 14 testimony and statements she gave to police and a grand jury little more than 24 hours after the 2013 incident. He told Justice Barbara R. Kahn that each inconsistency in and of itself was enough to cast a reasonable doubt as to his client's guilt. "When you add them all up together," he said, she had to conclude that Mr. Lee was not guilty.

The courtroom in Riverside was filled to capacity the day before the verdict was handed down. Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota sat in the front row.

Mr. Lankler's summary lasted about 75 minutes, with Kerriann Kelly's, for the prosecution, running about as long.

The timeline presented by Ms. Kelly began with the Irish accuser identified as D.D., then 20, changing in a bathroom back into the dress she had taken off earlier, before plunging into a backyard pool at the house Mr. Lee was renting in East Hampton. It was around 5:30 a.m. on Aug. 20, 2013.

As Ms. Kelly told it, Mr. Lee, naked, tried to enter the bathroom. D.D. at first thought it was a joke, then began pushing back against the door, leaving a handprint on it. She was knocked backward, Ms. Kelly said, and one of her earrings popped off, ending up on the floor by the sink. Mr. Lee then forced himself on her, placing the back of his hand over her mouth.

She fought back, kneeing him in the groin. He fell off her, Ms. Kelly said, and left the bathroom. D.D. then removed her underwear and dress and changed into some gym clothes Mr. Lee had given her earlier. She testified earlier in the trial that the dress "was disgusting."

Mr. Lankler's timeline also began in the bathroom. There were towels on the floor, and D.D. was performing oral sex on Mr. Lee, he told the court. Mr. Lankler pointed to multiple saliva stains found on the khaki shorts Mr. Lee was wearing that morning as proof, though the prosecution contended that the saliva had come from his own hand, when he clapped it over D.D.'s mouth.

Both sides agreed that D.D.'s brother and her friend Fiona were also at Mr. Lee's rented house. They had met him and a friend of his, Rene Duncan, the night before at Georgica, a popular nearby restaurant and nightspot, and were invited back to the house to continue partying at closing time. Mr. Lee's wife was in the city that evening.

According to the prosecution, Fiona, who testified the same day as D.D., and the brother went looking for D.D., not knowing where she was, and found her exiting the bathroom. Ms. Kelly reminded the court of Fiona's description of that moment: "She looked shaken. She looked scared. There were tears in her eyes."

Mr. Lankler, in his summary, questioned how an attack of that nature could have gone undetected by Fiona and the brother, who did not testify. The two were either in the living room or the kitchen, he said, just a few feet away from the bathroom. Mr. Lankler also emphasized differences between the two women's testimony.

Defense and prosecution agreed that all five people -- D.D., Fiona, her brother, Mr. Lee, and Mr. Duncan -- were outside on the street in front of the house when police arrived. Mr. Lee had made repeated phone calls in an attempt to get a taxi or car service to take his guests back to Montauk, where the brother was staying. To Ms. Kelly, this was the beginning of a long chain of actions which, taken together, were those of a guilty man. In the view of Mr. Lankler, however, Mr. Lee was simply trying his best to get rid of three now unwelcome visitors.

Mr. Lee finally told the three that he would drive them back to Montauk, himself. He told them to get into his Range Rover, which was parked in the driveway, not knowing that around that same time, Mr. Duncan had called East Hampton Town police to report his own car missing, apparently stolen. He had loaned it to a friend of D.D.'s brother earlier that morning.

Officer Sarah Mortensen arrived at 6:34 a.m. Evan as Mr. Duncan demanded that his car be found, Mr. Lee told her the police were not needed. In Mr. Lankler's narrative, this was natural: Mr. Duncan and the brother had been having a loud argument on a quiet East Hampton street and Mr. Lee wanted to calm things down.

Officer Mortensen also saw D.D., her brother, and her friend. They approached her vehicle and the brother leaned over to tell her something had happened to his sister. Mr. Duncan and Mr. Lee were arguing in the street at this point, away from the squad car.

Officer Mortensen asked D.D. to get into the car with her, and when she looked up, Mr. Duncan was in the street alone. Mr. Lee was found two and a half hours later, curled up in the back seat of the Range Rover.

Ms. Kelly said he had seen D.D. get into the police car and panicked. He jumped into the car, and made numerous phone calls while there, exchanging a series of text messages with both friends and attorneys.

Mr. Lankler saw it differently. Mr. Duncan was shouting about his missing car, he said. The scene was chaotic. "So Mr. Lee removes himself from the dispute . . . the reality is, he removes himself from the situation, but he takes a vantage point where he can see," in the back of the Range Rover.

D.D., along with her brother and her friend, were taken to police headquarters. Mr. Lankler did not explain why Mr. Lee stayed in the car, and Mr. Lee did not take the stand in his own defense.

He remained in the car, phoning and texting, while police were searching the house and grounds. He was not thinking about covering up a crime, said Mr. Lankler; rather, he was concerned about the car. The attorney made a point of saying that one of the first lawyers Mr. Lee called was the same one who represented Lizzie Grubman in 2001 after she backed her car into a crowd outside a Southampton nightclub. (Though he did not mention his name, that attorney was his co-counsel, Edward Burke Jr.)

Ms. Kelly objected, and the comment was stricken from the record.

Mr. Lankler and Ms. Kelly also interpreted testimony by Tara Accavallo, a nurse trained to treat victims of sexual assault, differently. She spent four hours examining D.D., and testified that the woman was alternately shaking and crying throughout, up to 11 hours after the incident.

Ms. Kelly reminded Justice Kahn of Ms. Accavallo's statement that a vaginal bruise was consistent with rape, while Mr. Lankler stressed the nurse's admission that the bruise could have occurred during consensual sex.

Finally, there was the question of the peach-colored dress D.D. was wearing that night. Police did not find it at the house during their investigation; it turned up eight months later, in a box delivered by someone employed by the defense.

Mr. Lankler did not explain this. Instead, he criticized the police investigation.

Ms. Kelly, on the other hand, contended that Mr. Lee had withheld vital evidence, suggesting that he had kept the dress as a "trophy" -- yet more proof, she concluded, of a "consciousness of guilt."

"I can't account for the judge's thinking," the district attorney, Mr. Spota, said after the verdict was announced. "We disagree. That's all I can say."

 

A controversial proposal for Duryea’s Dock in Montauk — to remove all the structures on the site and replace them with a restaurant and an open deck with a total capacity of 353 patrons — was tabled on April 22 before the East Hampton Town Planning Board could consider it.

The applicants, a limited liability corporation based in Delaware, bought the two properties involved, on either side of the private Tuthill Road, about a year ago for about $6.4 million.

There are a number of problems with the proposal, according to JoAnne Pahwuhl, the town’s assistant planning director. For one, one of the properties lies in a residential zone. The new owners propose to demolish that structure and use the space for the parking and septic system the restaurant would require.

Ms. Pahwuhl warned that before that can happen, a determination must be made as to whether land zoned residential can be used for commercial purposes.

Also, the zoning board of appeals ruled in 1997 that the existing operation was not a restaurant but a take-out business for prepared food. A restaurant would therefore constitute a new business, Ms. Pahwuhl wrote in a memo to the planning board, and the town would have to determine the total sewage flow and parking needed before it could issue it a permit.

Sewage flow is a major concern for another reason. The flow proposed is double the shy-three-acre lot’s maximum capacity. Unlike the current business, which will reportedly operate through the coming season, the new restaurant would fall under Suffolk County Department of Health Services control.

The site is ecologically sensitive, Ms. Pahwuhl said, sitting as it does between Fort Pond Bay and Tuthill Pond. “The project appears very aggressive, given the sensitive nature of the site,” she concluded.

The owners will apparently do more homework before bringing the proposal back to the planning board, Reed Jones, its chairman, indicated on Friday.