On the night of May 12, after spotting a car driving up Oakview Highway with no lights on in complete darkness, East Hampton Town police charged a Springs man with felony-level driving while intoxicated.
Henry Ramirez Gomez, 26, is facing the elevated charge due to a prior D.W.I. conviction in 2024. According to police, his Toyota failed to stop at a stop sign and he continued driving after the officer activated emergency lights.
In addition to the felony charge, Mr. Ramirez Gomez, who reportedly performed poorly on field sobriety tests and smelled of alcohol, faces a misdemeanor charge of driving without an interlock device. Judges will often mandate that the devices, which require a driver to blow into a tube and register their blood-alcohol content before the car can start, following a drunken-driving conviction.
Mr. Ramirez Gomez, who is on probation for his prior conviction, was also charged with driving without a license, a misdemeanor. He was held for released on his own recognizance by East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky.
In other police news, additional details were released this week in the April arrest of a Riverhead woman charged with felony D.W.I. with a child in the car.
Kelly Guerrero-Merlos, 28, was arrested in Amagansett on April 19 at around 1 a.m. According to the latest report, she had been speeding on Abraham’s Path between 10 and 20 miles per hour over the 30 m.p.h. speed limit there. Police said she’d run the stop sign at the intersection of Town Lane and failed to signal while making a left turn onto Montauk Highway.
Her black Chevrolet smelled strongly of alcohol and vomit, according to the report, when officers approached, and they found a 9-year-old child in the back seat. Ms. Guerrero-Merlos was additionally charged with misdemeanor charges of D.W.I. and endangering the welfare of a child.
Justice David Filer released her on her own recognizance later that morning with a date to be back in court in the near future.
