Coke Bust in Montauk
Two Montauk bars, one old, one relatively new, were the backdrop early Saturday morning for the arrest of Gustavo Bonilla-Bonilla, 41, on felony charges of cocaine possession.
Grace Peterson, an 11-year veteran of the East Hampton Town Police Department who previously served 13 years with the New York Police Department, pulled into the parking lot of Liar’s Saloon on West Lake Drive early Saturday morning after a dispatcher took a call from the bar. The call proved to be unfounded, and the officer returned to her marked car, which was parked behind a 1997 green Toyota Camry. As she recorded the call on her pad, she noticed an unusual amount of foot traffic between the bar and the Toyota in front of her. “The location is known for drug activity both in and around the establishment,” the officer later noted in her report.
She stopped writing and watched as a man left Liar’s and walked over to the Toyota, getting into the passenger seat. Three or four minutes later, according to the report, he returned to the bar. A second man paid a similar short visit to the Camry. When a third man began traveling the same path from Liar’s, Officer Peterson stepped out of her car. Upon seeing her, he swerved from his path.
“The officer then made inquiry,” Capt. Chris Anderson said Monday, “as to what the occupant of the Toyota’s business was.” Mr. Bonilla’s business, the officer determined, was selling cocaine, in small orange plastic packets.
Officer Peterson did a test on one of the packets, which was in plain sight on the top of the middle console. “Field-tested positive for the presence of cocaine,” she noted in her report.
She searched the car and reported finding 17 more packets. Mr. Bonilla was placed under arrest, charged with possessing over a half ounce of the narcotic and with possession with intent to sell.
“Good police work,” Captain Anderson said.
At police headquarters in Wainscott Mr. Bonilla told detectives how he came to be in possession of the cocaine. It began, he said, on Main Street in downtown Montauk last Thursday night.
“I walked into the bathroom at the Gig Shack and saw a few guys doing cocaine,” he stated. “I said I wanted some, and this guy [ . . . ] sold me a bag for $20.”
On Friday afternoon, he said, he ran into the man again, this time on Carl Fisher Plaza. The man offered to sell him all his packaged cocaine. “I’ll give you a good price, because I am headed to Florida tomorrow and I can’t travel with it,” Mr. Bonilla said he was told.
The two arranged to meet at the docks, where Mr. Bonilla said he paid the man $280 for 14 packets of cocaine.
At his arraignment Saturday after noon, though he had given police an address of 8 Duryea Road, Montauk, as his residence, he told Justice Steven Tekulsky that he was homeless. Justice Tekulsky set bail at $50,000, which had not been met as of Tuesday. Mr. Bonilla is to be brought back to East Hampton from the county jail in Riverside today, to await further court action.