New Year’s Arrest in Amagansett

A Springs man who was arrested early New Year’s morning on an aggravated charge of driving while intoxicated was taken at some point afterward to Southampton Hospital with unspecified injuries and not arraigned until the next day.

East Hampton Town police said they spotted Juan P. Farez, 29, making an illegal turn that morning from the parking lot behind Amagansett Main Street and then driving down the center safety lane. “Yes, I have been drinking, and I shouldn’t have been driving,” he reportedly told them.

Police said he failed roadside sobriety tests. Taken back to headquarters, they said, he took the Intoxilyzer 9000 breath test, which recorded a blood-alcohol level just under .21 of 1 percent. (The actual number was .209.)

A Legal Aid Society attorney, Brian Francese, told East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky at Mr. Farez’s arraignment on Friday that he was concerned about his client’s injuries. “They occurred during his time in police custody,” Mr. Francese told the court, adding that Mr. Farez had made a statement to the police at the hospital, but it had not been included in his case file.

“I haven’t seen that statement,” Justice Tekulsky said. “I will note for the record that the defendant appears with his right arm in a sling. The nature of his injuries, and how they were sustained, I have no idea.”

Mr. Farez’s wife, Andrea Bernal, who posted his $200 bail, told The Star there were no Spanish-speaking officers present when he was being processed at headquarters, and claimed he could not understand the dialect of the Spanish-speaking translator provided for him via the Language Line telephone service.

“He was hurt by the police,” she said. “Too many things don’t make sense.” The couple declined to provide a copy of Mr. Farez’s statement made at the hospital, and Mr. Farez declined to talk about his injuries.

Chief Michael D. Sarlo said, in an email yesterday, that Mr. Farez was “highly intoxicated” at the time of his arrest. “The defendant had some minor injuries to his hands and nose when he was stopped by the arresting officer, which were documented, and made comments to both the arresting officer and the on-duty supervisor during processing that he did not know how he had suffered the injuries.” The chief said the department had done a review of all internal tapes, and that Ms. Bernal’s insinuation was “totally baseless.”

A one-car crash early Saturday morning in the Culloden section of Montauk resulted in the arrest of the driver on drunken-driving charges.

Morgan Hammond, 20, of Montauk, was alone on Gannett Drive in a 1994 Dodge pickup truck, driving at a high rate of speed, according to town police, when, attempting to make a right turn onto Soundview Drive, he lost control of the truck. It struck an earthen embankment, crashed through a fence, and ended up atop a rock wall with extensive front-end and undercarriage damage.

Police said Mr. Hammond’s breath test produced a .14 reading. He was brought before Justice Lisa Rana later that morning.

“I’m concerned about this reading. I am concerned about your drinking,” she told him. She agreed, however, to release him without bail to a middle-aged Montauk couple who were in the courtroom, provided he agree to attend an alcohol-abuse treatment program.

Clearly displeased, Mr. Hammond argued that he had already done that.

“The fact that you’ve already been there is quite telling. What kind of year are we going to make this?” Justice Rana asked. Mr. Hammond then agreed, though reluctantly, to enter a program. “I want you back here this Thursday, and I want to see you’ve been to treatment,” she told him.

While booking a Springs man at headquarters on charges including two felonies stemming from a D.W.I. arrest the night of Dec. 29, town police ended up lodging an additional charge of misdemeanor criminal mischief, based on an unrelated incident earlier that evening. Luis P. Cardenas, 48, was pulled over on Fort Pond Boulevard, Springs, for driving erratically, police said.

Some of the charges he faces relate to a 2013 conviction for aggravated drunken driving. His driving privileges in New York were revoked at that time, making the two new charges, driving without a license and drunken driving, felonies. He also faces several misdemeanor and violation charges. At headquarters, he refused to take the breath test.

Meantime, a complaint against him had come in earlier that evening. According to residents of 100 Three Mile Harbor Road, his former address, he was seen leaving there at about 8:30 p.m., taking with him a Sony Play Station 3, along with the cords that had attached it to a television set.

“He lived with us, but moved out about a month ago,” a former housemate, Jarama Armano, told police. “He was not getting along with anyone.”

At his arraignment the next morning, Justice Tekulsky set bail at $5,000. It was not immediately posted, and Mr. Cardenas was taken to the county jail in Riverside, where, on New Year’s Eve, bail was finally presented. Mr. Cardenas was set free, with the shadow of a possible grand jury indictment on multiple felony charges looming over him.