The driver of a sport utility vehicle that crashed into Edouard Dejoux’s porch at the corner of Buell and Toilsome Lanes on Sunday afternoon told East Hampton Village police that he had been drinking all day before the accident.
Favian Gabriel Ventegeat’s black Jeep Grand Cherokee damaged a street light and flattened a portion of a hedge at 47 Toilsome Lane before cracking a supporting post on a corner the porch. The Jeep had been speeding west on Buell Lane in the direction of Buell Lane Extension before it came to rest between the house and some shrubs, police said.
East Hampton firefighters had to cut the vehicle out of its unintended nest with chainsaws before a tow truck could drag it out with a long cable.
Witnesses told police they had seen Mr. Ventegeat in the driver’s seat after the S.U.V. came to rest. They watched, they said, as he and a male passenger, whom police did not identify, got out of the car and Mr. Ventegeat, 28, emptied a 1.75-liter bottle of alcohol onto Mr. Dejoux’s lawn. They left the drained bottle on the ground, the witnesses said, and walked to the corner of Buell and Toilsome, where police were waiting.
Police also said they found two beer bottles, one full, the other empty, in the Jeep.
Mr. Ventegeat, of East 111th Street in Manhattan, failed field sobriety tests and was charged with driving while intoxicated.
Ten pills were in the car inside a small plastic bag, police reported, and a computer check revealed numerous license suspensions. He was charged additionally with criminal possession of a controlled substance and aggravated unlicensed operation and was held overnight for a Monday morning arraignment in East Hampton Town Justice Court.
During the arraignment he was charged with refusal to take a breath test, consuming alcohol in his car, speeding, throwing trash on private property, and “driving without financial security,” described under state law as failure to produce proof of insurance. He will be back in court at a future date.
