People who witnessed Charles Harrison Streep's Aug. 24 attack on David Sebastian Peralta-Mera in the parking lot behind the Chase Bank in East Hampton Village called it "brutal," but the recovery may be even more brutal for the young man. Mr. Peralta was rushed to Stony Brook University Hospital later that day, where surgeons performed an emergency craniotomy for bleeding in the brain.
The Springs man, 18, and his girlfriend, Christina Lopez, 17, had begun the day with breakfast at John Papas in the village. Ms. Lopez asked if they could pull off Main Street to get money from the bank. They were turning into the lot by the outdoor A.T.M. as Mr. Streep, a 31-year-old nephew of Meryl Streep whose family owns a house on nearby Pondview Lane, was coming out. His two-door Audi blew through a stop sign, witnesses said, almost hitting Mr. Peralta's Ford sedan.
Her boyfriend "got mad," Ms. Lopez said this week. "He was like, 'What are you doing?' He put his head out of the car and said, 'There's a stop sign right there.' " Mr. Streep, according to reports, then followed them into the lot. He might have had to make a U-turn to do so, but Ms. Lopez thinks he was driving in reverse.
"He started yelling, 'What did you say?' David was like, 'I just said that there was a stop sign right there.' He said, 'Oh, you're just Spanish? I'm gonna throw you down.' And then David was like, 'What are you talking about? What are you gonna do?' And then [Streep] started laughing and was like, 'You're gonna see what I'm gonna do.' "
He got out of the Audi, she said, and came close to the red Ford, which Mr. Peralta had just purchased with the money from two summer jobs. He had earned enough, Mr. Lopez said, to also pay for his sophomore year at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, which he can no longer complete.
The young woman believes that her presence and the new car contributed to what happened next. "David literally just got a car. And I was in the car as well, so he was all over the place.' "
"The first thing Mr. Streep said was something like, 'What? Are you 14 years old?' "
"My client is slight and relatively slim, small in stature, not a big bruiser," explained his attorney, Edmond Chakmakian. Mr. Peralta, whose medical bills are said to be nearing $100,000, is suing Mr. Streep for battery, medical expenses, and more, asking both compensatory and punitive damages.
Mr. Peralta got out of his car. Then, said Ms. Lopez, Mr. Streep "pushed my boyfriend." Mr. Peralta pushed back. "They both went down to the ground, and the older guy was on top of the younger guy," a witness, Robert Jensen, an Amagansett emergency medical technician who was off duty nearby, told East Hampton Village police later in a sworn statement. "They were struggling with each other on the ground. Then they both got up and I heard the older guy say, 'What the [expletive], this is stupid.' "
Mr. Streep then drove off, going the wrong way through the bank's other, one-way entrance.
"Streep should have given him a courtesy wave, 'My bad,' and then they should have been on their way," said Mr. Chakmakian. "For him to first of all be the cause of the near-traffic accident and second of all blame my client? All right, that's bad manners. But for him to assault and attack this kid brutally and slam him on the ground after he was defenseless and unconscious is just beyond the pale."
Mr. Peralta was bleeding when he regained consciousness, but thought it was from superficial cuts, and drove himself and his girlfriend home. Only then, Ms. Lopez said, did his vision get blurry. He began crying and screaming, she said, "like something clicked." She told Mr. Chakmakian that he "started seeing spots in front of his eyes, stars in front of his right eye, and could not speak, his headache was so bad."
Mr. Peralta spent a week in the hospital. Three weeks later, his head is still swollen.
"He's facing a long, difficult recovery," said Mr. Chakmakian. For at least a year and a half, said the lawyer, "his life is all doctors' appointments and intensive cognitive therapy," with the possibility of permanent problems. "I can tell, I've seen this before."
Mr. Peralta was disoriented when he woke up from surgery, but was comforted by the presence of his father, mother, and sister. He did not at first know why he was there, said Ms. Lopez.
"I went every day to the hospital," she said. "They weren't letting me in, but I would go every day." Ms. Lopez is a senior at East Hampton High School and plays forward on the soccer team. She worked at Vineyard Vines over the summer and works at Project Most at the John M. Marshall Elementary School during the school year.
Mr. Peralta is recovering at home. He has "very slow and deliberate speech, very serious headaches, and visual disturbances," said his lawyer, adding that he searches for words, has a slight stammer, and "hesitated the other day before answering how old he was."
Ms. Lopez said he is usually in bed and stays away from screens and lights.
"He has a lot of mood swings and his personality is different," she said. "He's still, like, sweet and everything, but it changes from time to time."
Police have charged Mr. Streep with second-degree assault, a felony. Because of the seriousness of the charge, the case was transferred to Suffolk County Supreme Court in Riverside, where he is scheduled to appear on Oct. 8. His attorney, Andrew J. Weinstein, declined to comment.
