Poxabogue Manager Found Not Guilty

Steven Lee, the former manager of the Poxabogue Golf Center in Sagaponack, was found not guilty of a felony charge of unlawful surveillance by a jury in Riverside on Thursday.

Mr. Lee had admitted to taking a cellphone photograph in July 2015 of a teenage girl seated on a bench outside his office with her legs spread, revealing her underwear. The girl, waiting for her parents, did not know she was being photographed because the window Mr. Lee was shooting through was opaque. He was arrested that October.

James O’Shea, an attorney for the 47-year-old Mr. Lee, told the jury at the beginning of the trial on March 16 that what his client did was "distasteful, stupid, but not illegal."

Mr. O’Shea pointed out to reporters that day that Mr. Lee had turned over his cellphone voluntarily to Southampton Town police. They then obtained a search warrant and examined the entire contents of the phone. The image of the girl was apparently the only photo they found that was salacious in nature.

The defense also challenged the way town police and the town government had handled the case. The Poxabogue Golf Center is a public course owned by the Town of Southampton, which contracts for its management. It was temporarily closed after Mr. Lee’s arrest in 2015.

His trial lasted three days, including the lawyers’ summations. The jury, which included an equal number of men and women, was in its second day of deliberation Thursday when its members sent a note to New York State Supreme Court Justice John Toomey saying that they were deadlocked on a verdict, according to the district attorney’s office. Justice Toomey urged them to resume deliberations. They eventually requested a readback of the charge they were considering. Another hour went by before they delivered their verdict.