Violated Driving Ban

A former resident of Montauk who lost his driving privileges for life after his sixth drunken-driving conviction was at the wheel of a 2003 Ford when police stopped him in the hamlet on April 5. He is now being held in the county jail in Riverside without possibility of bail.

Wayne B. Burling, 33, was one of the first residents of New York State to be hit with the lifetime ban by the Department of Motor Vehicles. The regulation was imposed administratively by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, bypassing the legislative process, in late 2012, and has since survived two challenges in the Court of Appeals.

Mr. Burling, who now lives in Center Moriches, was arrested earlier that year following an accident on Star Island in Montauk, and convicted the year after. He was sentenced to one to three years in state prison and served 19 months before being released. He was still supposed to be reporting to a parole officer this month when East Hampton Town police pulled him over for a cracked windshield and an expired inspection sticker, and he was charged with violating parole as well as unlicensed driving, a felony, along with the moving violations.

Because of Mr. Burling’s multiple felony convictions, the local court was prohibited by law from setting bail, and East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky sent him to jail. Bail for such defendants can be set at the county level only.

A Springs man was charged with drunken driving a little before midnight last Thursday after his 2004 Nissan hit a tree on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton. Police said they found Manuel P. Castillo, 55, behind the wheel of the badly damaged car with the motor still running. “I hit a tree,” he told the arresting officer.

At police headquarters in Wainscott, he reportedly refused to take the Intoxilyzer 9000 breath test, resulting in an automatic one-year license suspension. During his arraignment Friday morning, Justice Tekulsky noted that he had been convicted in 2006 of an alcohol-related charge, driving with ability impaired, but freed him without bail in a nod to his ties to the community. Mr. Castillo has a future date on the court’s criminal calendar, however.

Driving while intoxicated was also the charge against a 64-year-old Hauppauge man who was pulled over near the Montauk train station Friday evening. Robert A. Thompson’s 1994 Ford had failed to stop at a stop sign, police said, and he had failed to signal a turn onto Edgemere Street. At headquarters, police said they obtained a .11 breath-test reading.

Mr. Thompson, too, was released without bail. Despite his UpIsland address, he has ties to East Hampton, Justice Lisa R. Rana noted during his Saturday arraignment.

Finally, early Tuesday morning, Jeremiah Desmond of Montauk, 65, was arrested there on Edgemere Street on suspicion of D.W.I. His breath test produced a reported reading of .14. He was freed without post bail, but with a place on Justice Rana’s calendar.