Springs firefighters quickly extinguished a fire that broke out in a bedroom where work was being done Friday afternoon.

The Springs Fire Department was called to 36 Cedar Ridge Drive at about 2:20 p.m. A worker was alone in the house and a drop cloth, or something similar, somehow caught fire, according to Darrin Downs, the first assistant fire chief. 

The East Hampton Town fire marshal’s office is investigating the cause. 

Chief Downs said that the fire was put out quickly and that the damage was limited to the bedroom. There was smoke damage in other areas of the house, he said. 

The Amagansett Fire Department's rapid intervention team was called to the fire, while the East Hampton Fire Department stood by in case Springs received any other calls. 

“I went into the house for one reason,” Tristan Tutching reportedly told East Hampton Town detectives in a midnight interview on May 2, “to get my girlfriend out of there, into my car, and back to her parents.”

Police say the Riverhead man was dragging the young woman, whose name was not released, out of an Amagansett house and toward his 2002 Volvo when he was confronted by Justin Napolillo, who had come to her defense carrying a 12-gauge shotgun.

“I was so scared he was going to shoot me through the windshield,” Mr. Tutching stated, “that I just put my car in drive, aimed it at where he was standing, and ran him over to stop that from happening. I couldn’t have been going more than 10 miles per hour when I hit him.” Police said Mr. Tutching drove the car directly at Mr. Napolillo, striking him, and charged him with two felonies: burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon (the car), as well as three misdemeanors, unlawful imprisonment, menacing, and assault. 

Mr. Napolillo dropped the shotgun after he was struck. Mr. Tutching jumped out of the car and picked up the shotgun, police said. “After I hit him with my car, I saw that the shotgun had fallen from his hands and landed near my driver’s-side door,” he told detectives. “I got out and picked it up, and that’s when Justin said to me, ‘It’s not loaded,’ so I dropped it.” According to the charges, Mr. Tutching threatened Mr. Napolillo with the weapon before realizing it was not loaded and dropping it. 

It was unclear from the police report whether the young woman was actually inside the car during the altercation. If so, she managed to exit it before Mr. Napolillo drove off, heading west.

The initial 911 call came in at 8:33 p.m., reporting a man having been struck by a car. When police arrived at the house, which is on Montauk Highway just west of Cranberry Hole Road, they found a chaotic scene, with a shotgun on the ground and Mr. Napolillo injured, as well as the young woman, who was also injured. 

At 8:38 p.m., dispatchers put out a “be on the lookout” call to town and village police for the gray Volvo. Almost immediately, an East Hampton Village officer spotted the car on Pantigo Road. It turned onto Newtown Lane, where the officer pulled it over and detained Mr. Tutching until town police arrived to take him into custody. He was formally arrested at 10:32 p.m. and taken to headquarters, where, around midnight, he gave his statement to detectives. 

Mr. Napolillo, meanwhile, was taken for treatment to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital by an Amagansett Fire Department ambulance. He was later released.

Mr. Tutching was charged with menacing once before, in 2015, when Southampton Town police arrested him after he allegedly lured a man out of his house, brandished a shotgun, and pumped a shell into its chamber. He was additionally charged with illegal weapons possession and ultimately pleaded guilty to menacing. He was fined $355. 

He was arraigned on the current charges last Thursday in East Hampton Town Justice Court. Bail was set at $5,000, which was posted. The Volvo was impounded and towed to the town police yard on Industrial Road in Wainscott.

The East Hampton Fire Department held its annual inspection dinner at the Maidstone Club on Saturday night, with a number of members getting recognized for their years of service.

William Bennett and Frank Tillinghast were given plaques in honor of 55 years of service. Steve Griffiths, Robert Mott, and outgoing Chief Ken Wessberg were recognized for their 40 years. 

Officers thanked and roasted Mr. Wessberg, who completed his second tenure as chief, having served once before in the early 1990s. Taking over as chief is Gerard Turza Jr., who had served as first assistant chief. Jamalia Hayes is now first assistant chief, and Brian Stanis takes over as second assistant chief. 

In other awards, ex-chief Steven Tekulsky — an East Hampton Town justice — was presented with the Chiefs Appreciation Award for his invaluable assistance to the department, Chief Turza said. 

Capt. Duane Forrester was named officer of the year for his quick thinking at a fire at East Hampton Indoor Tennis earlier this year. Mr. Forrester was the first to arrive after a fire alarm was activated there and found a fire being fed by a ruptured liquefied petroleum gas line. 

“He approached it without protection of a hose line and shut the gas off, which helped keep the fire in check,” Chief Turza said.

Also Saturday night, Scott Fithian, a former captain, was named firefighter of the year, and Hook and Ladder Company 1 was named company of the year.

Other years-of-service awards were handed out to Ken Collum for 35 years; Paul Hatch, Thomas Bono, Robert Anderson, and Greg Brown for 25 years; James Conklin for 20 years; Joanne O’Brien, Stephen Field, and Thomas Strong Sr. for 15 years, and William Sullivan and Joseph Burriesci Sr. for 10 years.

Police are asking for the public's help in identifying and locating a man who stole two televisions from a Water Mill residence last month. 

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Southampton Town police detectives said a man broke in to a house on Cobb Road and took the flat-screen televisions on April 10 around 8:40 a.m. 

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest.

Anyone with information can contact Crime Stoppers to submit an anonymous tip by calling 1-800-220-TIPS, texting “SCPD” and your message to “CRIMES” (274637), or by emailing at the website tipsubmit.com. All calls, text messages, and emails will be kept confidential.  

A man East Hampton Town police say set fire to a truck parked in Springs in February was arrested on Wednesday after a two-and-a-half-month investigation by town detectives and the Suffolk County Police Arson Squad.

Robert B. Slowey, 61, of Sag Harbor was taken into custody without incident at a house in Southampton where he had been staying recently, according to Detective Sgt. Dan Toia. He said Mr. Slowey had been a suspect from the beginning, given the proximity in time and distance between the fire at Jefferson Davis Eames's property on Neck Path and a crash on Town Lane in Amagansett that same day in which Mr. Slowey's Nissan truck had veered off on a sharp curve, gone down an embankment, and struck a tree.

On Feb. 7, the Amagansett Fire Department responded to Neck Path in Springs, where Elaine Daddio's 2007 Ford F550 was on fire. But within five minutes the department received a call reporting the crash on Town Lane, where Mr. Slowey's 1986 Nissan had rolled over onto the driver's side. Photographs of the scene show numerous empty beer cans strewn about. Mr. Slowey was taken to the hospital, where he reportedly refused to have blood drawn to test the level of alcohol in his blood.

It appears from the court file that the paperwork from that alleged refusal never reached East Hampton Town Justice Court, so his license had not been suspended.

On the morning of Feb. 7, Ms. Daddio had left for the store, but forgot something at home, she told The Star in February. When she returned to the house around 11:40, the truck was in flames. According to court records, police allege that Mr. Slowey applied "an open flame to an ignitable liquid in the area of the seat of a 2007 Ford F550, causing severe damage and charring the interior."

The truck was a total loss, Mr. Eames said in February. 

Mr. Slowey was arraigned on an arson charge in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Thursday and was ordered remanded to county jail without bail by East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana. 

Before this week Mr. Slowey was already facing a misdemeanor drunken driving charge stemming from the crash on Town Lane, and already had at least two felony convictions on his record, meaning bail on the new felony arson charge can only be set in county or superior court. District Attorney Tim Sini's office has until Monday to obtain an indictment against Mr. Slowey from a grand jury. Otherwise he will have to be released, as required by law.

 

The East Hampton attorney who stole money from the estate of a deceased North Fork resident, as well as from a lawyer who worked at his firm in East Hampton, pleaded guilty in Suffolk County Court in Riverside on Friday to eight charges, including six felonies. New York Supreme Court Justice Mark Cohen is expected to confirm Kyle Thomas Lynch's plea-bargained sentence for two to six years on June 19, with most of the time expected to be served outside of prison, on parole. He was indicted by a grand jury on Sept. 8.

Mr. Lynch, a partner in the now defunct Bainton Lynch law firm, which was on Muchmore Lane in East Hampton Village, was arrested on Feb. 8, 2017, after a year-and-a-half, multi-agency investigation. Most of the crimes he admitted having committed occurred in 2014 and 2015.

Mr. Lynch took $579,247.36 in checks made out to Bainton Lynch, from the estate of Helen Chalmers, an Orient resident who died in the fall of 2013, and he deposited it into the business account of his law firm. He spent the money both for his firm and himself. He also took out and used credit cards in the name of Carl Irace, who was an associate attorney at the firm at the time, running up charges of $60,894.81. Mr. Irace brought Mr. Lynch's thievery to the attention of the police when he noticed discrepancies in his credit card statements.

A third victim was Thomas Rudegeair, a client of the firm. Mr. Lynch stole about $85,000 from an escrow account being held for Mr. Rudegeair.

Among the charges Mr. Lynch pleaded guilty to were four counts of grand larceny. The other felony charges were two counts of identity theft. He also pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of unlawful possession of personal identification information.

According to the district attorney's office, Mr. Lynch will initially be in a downstate correctional facility, most likely Fishkill. He will then be incarcerated at the Willard Drug Treatment Campus in Seneca County. If he completes a 90-plus-day, boot-camp drug treatment program there, he will be taken back to the downstate facility and released on parole for the remainder of his sentence.

Since three Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Luis Marin-Castro while he was unloading a trailer outside Wainscott Main Wine and Spirits on April 9, the 31-year-old, who has lived in East Hampton for 20 years, has endured a Kafkaesque journey from Wainscott to Hackensack, N.J., to Milan, N.M., to El Paso, Tex., and, finally back to Chaparral, N.M., where he has been in custody since Tuesday morning. 

At the same time, family, friends, and colleagues from the wine shop, where he has worked for the past year, and Nick and Toni’s restaurant in East Hampton, where he is a dining room captain and sommelier, have labored tirelessly to obtain information about his case and to secure his release. 

To that end, a GoFundMe campaign established by Meredith Thompson and Rob Villavicencio had raised more than $52,000 as of yesterday. Chimene Macnaughton, the manager of Wainscott Main, has led the effort to secure legal representation for Mr. Marin-Castro, an Ecuadorean citizen, and to provide the attorneys with more than 50 letters of support and other information that establish his deep ties in the East Hampton community.

Ms. Macnaughton pointed out that Mr. Marin-Castro, who is married to Pia Bazzani, an American citizen, had originally been scheduled for biometrics on Friday. Biometrics is part of the process of obtaining a green card. “Everyone has said the fingerprinting appointment means you’re done, you’re in the clear,” she said. She added that he was less than a month away from completing his three-year probation track for a 2015 misdemeanor charge of drunken driving.

“It makes you wonder if they have no other information on these people they pick up,” she said. “If you look at him on paper, he has two high-level professional, managerial jobs. You don’t get to where he is in the wine industry by accident or by just being a busboy at Nick and Toni’s. We’re a week in and we’re all trying to figure out why they picked him.”

ICE is an important source of contracts for private prisons, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting, and ICE initially took Mr. Marin-Castro to a private prison in Hackensack. His supporters contacted New York City immigration attorneys and were told there was no deportation order on file as of April 10. A lawyer was set to visit Mr. Marin-Castro on April 11, but at 4 that morning his wife received a phone call that he was being moved to New Mexico. 

According to Ms. Macnaughton, who has spoken with Mr. Marin-Castro several times since then, “He didn’t know where he was going. They put him on this plane that said ICE Air on the outside. Those are the charter deportation planes. Obviously they couldn’t deport him without a hearing, but still it makes you panic.” His destination turned out to be the Cibola County Correctional Center, another privately owned prison. Like the Hackensack site, Cibola is an overflow jail, and an ICE contract facility. 

Once his supporters determined his location last Thursday morning, Ms. Macnaughton, who has contacts in Dallas and Austin, was referred to Noble and Vrapi, a leading immigration law firm with offices in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, N.M., and El Paso. 

Andres Santiago, a lawyer for the firm, met with Mr. Marin-Castro briefly, and arrangements were made for a return visit. He also informed Ms. Macnaughton that because there is no immigration court in New Mexico, Mr. Marin-Castro would eventually have to be moved to Denver or El Paso for his hearing.

Just five days after Mr. Marin-Castro arrived at Cibola, before his second scheduled conference with Mr. Santiago, there was once again no bed for him. He was able to phone his father before he was put on a bus to El Paso on Tuesday, but that eight-hour bus trip turned into a 24-hour journey, as he was also turned away from El Paso because of overcrowding. 

Mr. Marin-Castro is now in custody in the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, which is 30 miles from El Paso, and his East Hampton team is hopeful that his scheduled appointment today with the El Paso arm of Noble and Vrapi will proceed without further delay.

Mr. Santiago said that, while the move to El Paso was expected, it was not ideal, since judges are more conservative in Texas. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, is one of nine in favor of revoking Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which provides protection for some individuals who were brought to the United States illegally as children.

Nonetheless, Mr. Santiago said he is “fairly optimistic.” The firm is preparing a bond motion, which it hopes to file next week at the latest. Once the hearing is held and Mr. Marin-Castro is bonded out, he can return to East Hampton, and the firm will try to get the immigration hearing transferred to New York.

“While he is deportable, once you’re in deportation proceedings, you can raise what are called ‘forms of relief.’ Since Luis and his wife had started the process of obtaining a green card before his detention, they are probably going to be able to do that in front of the deportation court. If they can’t complete that process there, they can do most of it while he is in the States,” Mr. Santiago said. His family connections and the amount of time he has lived in this country are prerequisites for “cancellation of removal,” another form of relief, and should also work in his favor, the lawyer said. 

Because he is undocumented, the drunken driving incident likely triggered Mr. Marin-Castro’s apprehension and elimination of his protection under DACA. “One attorney told me they haven’t seen aggressive grabs like this in 10 years, since Bush,” said Ms. Macnaughton. “Imagine all the resources you need to deal with all the steps along the way, and how few people in Luis’s position have them.”

She said that donations have been received from the highest levels of the wine industry. “People who own import companies have given $1,000 apiece,” and longtime customers of the wine shop and Nick and Toni’s have been extremely generous. 

“Luis has been working for the shop and the New York wine community for the past year. I’ve taken him to every single tasting in New York, so he has been on a broader stage since coming to the store. Every single person gets him and adores him. You can see his ability immediately. He’s an incredible taster and an incredible salesperson.”

Domestic altercations resulted in felonies and other charges for four men in the last week. In all but one case, the alleged victims were women and, in most, iPhones were involved.

Seven charges were leveled against Jonathan G. Astudillo-Tacuri, including two felonies, early on Sunday morning. Police said he and a woman with whom he had formerly lived had a prolonged altercation on Saturday night. According to police, the woman, publically identified by East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana only by her first name, Elvia, received an order of protection. 

According to police, she had gotten into her automobile, parked in the Pepperoni Pizza lot on Springs-Fireplace Road, and began driving south. She told police Mr. Astudillo-Tacuri popped up in the back seat, where he had been hiding. She said she pulled over, trying to escape a couple of times, but Mr. Astudillo-Tacuri restrained her. At one point, he reached into her purse and grabbed two credit cards and a debit card along with an iPhone 6 and an iPhone 8, she said.

By this time, they were on Three Mile Harbor Road and he took over the wheel, she told police, driving north until they reached the Maidstone Market, where he slowed down, almost coming to a stop. She said she jumped out and ran to a friend’s house nearby. 

When police located Mr. Astudillo-Tacuri at his Birdie Lane residence early Sunday morning, they said he was in possession of the cards and the cellphones. He was charged with grand larceny of credit cards and criminal possession of stolen cards, both felonies, as well as three misdemeanors: petty larceny for the alleged theft of the cellphones, criminal possession of the phones, and unlawful imprisonment. He was also charged with harassment, a violation.

During his arraignment on Sunday morning, Justice Rana said the district attorney’s office had asked that bail be set at $30,000. Carl Irace, an attorney hired by Suffolk County to ensure that all defendants have competent representation during weekend arraignments, argued that Mr. Astudillo-Tacuri was a candidate for release without bail, or at least with nominal bail. 

“His life is here in East Hampton,” he said. The credit cards, he said, actually belong to Mr. Astudillo-Tacuri, as does the iPhone 8. “It opens with his app ID.” He also argued that Mr. Astudillo-Tacuri had been the victim. “She also bit him on the left wrist,” he said. “There are clear teeth marks. These are only E felonies, unlikely to result in conviction.” 

Justice Rana reviewed each charge out loud. “Two class E felonies, including grand larceny,” she said. She listed the three misdemeanors, finishing by saying, “He has been charged with unlawful imprisonment.” Bail was set at $15,000, which was posted. Justice Rana issued an order requiring Mr. Astudillo-Tacuri to have no contact with the alleged victim.

Another man arraigned on a felony charge of domestic violence the same morning was Matthew Hugo Morales, 28, of Springs. Police alleged that during a fight a little after midnight at his residence, he choked, punched, and kicked a woman, identified at court only as Jacqueline, and destroyed her iPhone 8. He was charged with a felony count of criminal mischief and misdemeanor charges of assault and obstruction of breathing. 

His attorney, Edward Burke Jr., said during the Sunday morning arraignment that his client was as much a victim as the woman involved, and had the marks on his body to prove it. 

The district attorney had recommended bail at $15,000; Mr. Burke argued for his client to be released without bail. “There are two sides to every story, but I am disturbed about the nature of these allegations,” Justice Rana said. She set bail at $2,500, after issuing an order of protection. “Listen. Just stay away. Do yourself a favor. Don’t get sucked in.”

Another fight last week involved two male residents of a group home on Wainscott Northwest Road in Wainscott. One of them, Justin Woods, is facing a felony assault charge after allegedly slamming a blender bowl on the head of a fellow resident Sunday night, sending him to the hospital with a three-inch gash. Mr. Woods, 21, has lived in the home for three years, Cynthia Darrell, his Legal Aid Society attorney, said during his Monday afternoon arraignment.

After issuing an order of protection, Justice Rana set Wednesday as Mr. Woods’s day to return to court, by which time he was expected to be moved to a different home. She also recommended that if he saw the alleged victim, he should “go the other way.” 

 “I’m not going to make you post bail, so you are not going to jail, but, if you violate that order of protection. . . ,” she said with a pause,“I’m going to jail,” Mr. Woods responded.

The fourth man charged with a felony following a domestic incident was John B. Grant, 48, of Springs. Though the court and police did not identify the victim, she was referred to as his wife. Also involved were two minors. Mr. Grant was charged with criminal mischief for allegedly breaking his wife’s iPhone a little before midnight on April 10. “I took the phone out of my wife’s hand because we were no longer on the same page, and it broke in the process,” he reportedly told police. 

He has also been charged with two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a minor and a misdemeanor criminal mischief charge for allegedly forcing his way through a locked bedroom door, damaging the frame. “It’s not a big deal. We have weak doors,” he told police.

He was released after posting $2,500 bail following an April 11 arraignment, during which three orders of protection were issued.

A lawyer from Central Islip is facing a multitude of narcotics charges, including possession with intent to sell, after being arrested early on the morning of April 11 by East Hampton Town police following a traffic stop in downtown Montauk.

It is the second time he has been the subject of a felony arrest this month.

According to police, Daniel R. Wasp, 50, had “insufficient taillights” on the 1999 Jeep he was driving, leading to the stop. When the officer ran Mr. Wasp’s license, he discovered that it had been suspended numerous times for failure to answer traffic summonses.

Mr. Wasp was handcuffed, charged with misdemeanor unlicensed driving, and placed in the back of a squad car.

Police then began a routine search. In documents prepared for the court, police said that when they opened a knapsack that was in the Jeep, they found a veritable supermarket of recreational drugs, packaging materials, and a scale. The knapsack allegedly contained over five milligrams of methamphetamine and over 500 milligrams of cocaine, enough of each to lead to two felony possession charges. Police also said they found four packets of heroin, a hypodermic needle, small plastic bags that can be used to package narcotics, and an electronic digital scale, all of which led to four misdemeanor possession charges.

The most serious of the felony charges Mr. Wasp faces is possession with intent to sell.

Police also claimed to have found a small amount of marijuana, leading to a simple violation possession charge.

Mr. Wasp was taken to headquarters and placed in a holding cell. He was arraigned on April 11 in East Hampton Town Justice Court. Patrick Fedun, an assistant district attorney, asked Justice Steven Tekulsky to set bail at $35,000. Mr. Wasp told the court that he had served for more than six years in the Navy, and Matthew D’Amato of the Legal Aid Society, who was representing Mr. Wasp for his arraignment, laid out how Mr. Wasp had graduated cum laude from St. John’s University School of Law and gone on to work at several prominent law firms before setting up his own office in Smithtown in 2014. Justice Tekulsky set bail at $10,000.

Unable to post that amount, Mr. Wasp was turned over to Suffolk County sheriffs, who transported him to the county jail in Riverside, where he spent the next five days. On Monday, he was released from custody, as required in cases where a defendant is unable to make bail on a felony charge but an indictment is not obtained within the prescribed 120 hours after arrest. 

Mr. Wasp was previously arrested on April 5 by Suffolk County police, who charged him with grand larceny. Online court records and comments made at the arraignment in East Hampton indicate that police allege that Mr. Wasp stole more than $3,000 on or before March 9 from an escrow account he was in charge of. He was arraigned on that charge in Central Islip on April 5 and released without having to post bail.

A lawyer from Central Islip is facing a multitude of narcotics charges, including possession with intent to sell, after being arrested early Wednesday morning by East Hampton Town police following a traffic stop in downtown Montauk.

It is the second time he has been the subject of a felony arrest this month.

According to police, after apparently leaving an establishment on Montauk's Main Street, Daniel R. Wasp, 50, forgot to turn on the headlights of the 1999 Jeep he was driving, leading to the stop. When the officer ran Mr. Wasp's license, he discovered that it had been suspended numerous times for failures to answer traffic summonses.

Mr. Wasp was handcuffed, charged with misdemeanor unlicensed driving, and placed in the back of a squad car.

Police then began a routine search. In documents prepared for the court, police said that when they opened a knapsack that was in the Jeep, they found a veritable supermarket of recreational drugs, packaging materials, and a scale. The knapsack allegedly contained over five milligrams of methamphetamine and over 500 milligrams of cocaine, enough of each to lead to two felony possession charges. Police also said they found four packets of heroin, a hypodermic needle, small plastic bags that can be used to package narcotics, and an electronic digital scale, all of which led to four misdemeanor possession charges.

The most serious of the felony charges Mr. Wasp faces is possession with intent to sell.

Police also claimed to have found a small amount of marijuana, leading to a simple violation possession charge.

Mr. Wasp was taken to headquarters and placed in a holding cell. He was arraigned late Wednesday morning in East Hampton Town Justice Court. Patrick Fedun, an assistant district attorney, asked Justice Steven Tekulsky to set bail at $35,000. Mr. Wasp told the court that he had served for more than six years in the Navy, and Matthew D'Amato of the Legal Aid Society, who was representing Mr. Wasp for his arraignment, laid out how Mr. Wasp had graduated cum laude from the St. John's University School of Law and went on to work at several prominent law firms before setting up his own office in Smithtown in 2014. Justice Tekulsky set bail at $10,000.

Not immediately able to post that amount, Mr. Wasp on Wednesday afternoon was turned over to Suffolk County sherrifs, who transported him to the county jail in Riverside, where he remained as of Thursday morning.

Mr. Wasp was previously arrested on April 5 by Suffolk County police, who charged him with grand larceny. Online court records indicate that police allege that Mr. Wasp stole more than $3,000 on or before March 9 from, according to comments made at the arraignment in East Hampton, an escrow account he was in charge of. He was arraigned on that charge in Central Islip on April 5 and released without having to post bail. He was scheduled to appear in court in Central Islip on Thursday, when the question of bail in that case could be revisited.