$10,000 Bail After a Search

An East Hampton man with a long criminal record was back in jail this week after a series of legal twists and turns.

Darius Z. Petty, 26, was arraigned in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Feb. 24, following an icy car crash on Stephen Hand’s Path two weeks before. Mr. Petty, a passenger that night in Christopher Pulido’s 2000 Honda, reportedly gave East Hampton Town police a hard time when they asked him what had happened, screaming, cursing, and refusing to tell them his name. According to the report, he shouted among other things that the officers would treat him differently if he were white. Police charged him with disorderly conduct and took him to headquarters in Wainscott for processing.

Mr. Petty arrived in court on the appointed date, stopping off before the proceedings began to pay a fine from a previous conviction. Justice Lisa R. Rana set bail at $250, and told the defendant that he had to show up for every court date. He said he would, “If I can make it.”

Justice Rana asked what that meant. Mr. Petty, cursing, said he was about to go on trial in county court.

Accompanied by court guards, he was on his way to post the bail when the guards stopped him to search his pockets. The search, according to police, produced a rock of crack cocaine, and the guards placed him under arrest on a misdemeanor charge of cocaine possession. He was turned over to town police to be fingerprinted and photographed yet again.

Back in the courthouse several hours later for his second arraignment of the day, Mr. Petty’s circumstances were markedly different. Bail was set this time at $10,000. Unable to make bail, he was taken to the county jail in Riverside, where he remained as of yesterday.

Last July, Mr. Petty, along with Frederic Stephens Jr., 23, who was also a passenger in Mr. Pulido’s car on the night of the crash, was charged with selling cocaine and several related felonies. Mr. Stephens pleaded guilty to eight felony counts, and was sentenced in December to five years’ probation. Mr. Petty, however, whose string of arrests began when he was 16, spent several months in jail, until a $20,000 bond was posted in December. His record includes arrests in East Hampton, Westhampton, and Palm Bay, Fla., for criminal mischief, trespassing, attempted robbery, burglary, violating probation, cocaine possession, and domestic violence. He has served at least 14 months in jail.

He is scheduled to appear on Wednesday in the courtroom of State Supreme Court Justice William Condon, in connection with last summer’s charge of selling cocaine. His court-appointed lawyer, Keith O’Halloran, said on Monday that that appearance was to have been the final one before a jury trial would be scheduled.