Dawn Raid in East Hampton Nets Longtime Criminal

Melvin Smith, 50, an East Hampton man with a long criminal record, was indicted Monday on multiple felonies related to the sale of oxycodone, following a March 9 dawn raid on a Morris Park Lane house. According to East Hampton Town police, Mr. Smith was caught selling the prescription opioid on three separate occasions, starting last August and ending early this month.

The raid was a cooperative operation between the East End Drug Task Force and the East Hampton Town Police Department. Officers from the Sag Harbor and East Hampton Village departments, who joined town police in executing a search warrant, also allegedly turned up a small amount of cocaine and a shotgun, though the grand jury indictment did not mention the weapons charge.

Mr. Smith was initially arraigned in East Hampton Town Justice Court. Justice Steven Tekulsky sent him to county jail, explaining that state law precludes local justices from setting bail for defendants with two or more felony convictions. Mr. Smith has over five, including convictions for rape and sodomy when he was 18. His most recent was in 2012, for failing to register in East Hampton as a sex offender. 

He is being held in the county jail in Riverside. The indictment will be unsealed in the courtroom of New York State Justice Richard Ambro in Riverside next Thursday. If convicted on the current charges, he could be sentenced as a persistent felony offender to 15 to 25 years in state prison.