Led Cops on Wild Chase
Following a high-speed chase in Springs on New Year’s Day, Jefferson Davis Eames of that hamlet was charged with resisting arrest, reckless driving, and unlicensed driving. The arrest added to Mr. Eames’s legal entanglements, among which is a lawsuit brought by him against the East Hampton Town Police Department.
According to police, Mr. Eames’s 2004 Mini-Cooper was speeding north on Springs-Fireplace Road, near where he was arrested recently on a charge of driving while high on drugs, when an officer in a patrol car spotted him and turned on her emergency lights. He accelerated, according to the report, pulling into the oncoming lane, forcing others cars off the road and just missing a crash. Moving at up to 90 miles an hour, he allegedly made a series of left turns, first onto Teak Lane, then Norfolk Drive, and finally onto Underwood Road, where, losing control of the Mini-Cooper, he sideswiped a telephone pole and struck a mailbox before veering across the road and into the woods. He then took off on foot, police said, eluding capture.
At least one police vehicle appears to have been damaged in the pursuit, according to the incident log for that day. “No one got hurt. That’s the main thing,” Det. Sgt. Greg Schaefer said yesterday.
Mr. Eames turned himself in last Thursday with an attorney, Carl Irace, at his side, after police contacted him, and was charged with the three misdemeanors. He also faces 21 moving violations in connection with the incident, a list so long that each one had to be listed on the inside of the case’s court file.
Mr. Irace entered a not guilty plea on his client’s behalf to all the charges during that afternoon’s arraignment. “The situation is complicated. Mr. Eames looks forward to defending himself against these allegations,” Mr. Irace said yesterday.
Another of Mr. Eames’s attorneys, Michael Griffiths, said yesterday that his client was under constant surveillance by town police and that he “gets stopped all the time.”
At Mr. Eames’s arraignment in November on the driving-on-drugs charge, which has not yet been adjudicated, Justice Steven Tekulsky called him a “persistent violator” of New York State’s vehicle and traffic laws, and set bail of $750, which was posted. Last Thursday, Justice Tekulsky required an additional $1,250 bail before Mr. Eames was freed.
Mr. Griffiths claimed that the charge of unlicensed driving was in error, saying that Mr. Eames’s driving privileges had been restored by the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Mr. Eames has a history of run-ins with town police officers. A 2012 arrest following an alleged road-rage incident was dismissed, but another road-rage charge from 2013 remains open in the Riverhead courtroom of Justice Allen M. Smith. That charge stems from an altercation outside Mr. Eames’s Neck Path house involving the wife of a town police officer, as well as Mr. Eames’s wife, Melissa, who was tried separately after ward on a simple harassment charge and found guilty, though her sentence did not involve jail time.
Both cases were moved to Riverhead after Justice Tekulsky and Justice Lisa R. Rana, as well as several other East End justices, recused themselves.
Justice Smith is deciding whether a statement allegedly made by Mr. Eames after the 2013 arrest is admissible as evidence. That ruling is expected on March 27, though Mr. Griffiths said the court had delayed it several times. “Once again, we are waiting for a decision,” Mr. Griffiths said.
In 2015, Mr. Eames brought a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Central Islip against the Police Department, its current chief, Michael Sarlo, its former chief, Edward Ecker Jr., the officers involved in the 2012 and 2013 arrests, and the Town of East Hampton, alleging that his constitutional rights were violated during those arrests. His attorney in that case, which is also pending, is Patricia Weiss.