Police & Courts

It was a busy Saturday night on Georgica Pond for the East Hampton Town Marine Patrol as numerous people were ticketed last week for illegally harvesting blue-claw crabs — an ever-growing poaching problem, say town officials, and one that they are struggling to get the upper hand on.

On Aug. 4, without naming the individual, East Hampton Village posted a press release announcing the 30-day suspension of a volunteer emergency medical services worker from the Village Ambulance Association after “hostile work environment” complaints filed against him were “found to be valid.” While the village may not have named him, by that point Randy Hoffman, the longtime critical-care E.M.T. who was told of his suspension the day before, had already named himself, sharing his side of the story and expressing his frustration with the decision.

In on accident in Springs at around 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 9, a 2005 Audi left the road and hit a retaining wall, a basketball hoop, and a mailbox at a house on Guernsey Lane, sustaining significant damange. A trail of fluid from the accident led police to the vehicle, which the driver had parked at her nearby home.

After police pulled over a Sagaponack man for going 90 miles per hour ina. 30 m.p.h. zone, a slew of charges followed incouding two felonies and misdemeanors for allegedly driving while intoxicated.

Bike vs. car; dump drunk vs. Suburban, Suburban vs. Suburban.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has secured a guilty plea from the first of five people accused of stealing $94,000 worth of handbags from the luxury retailer Balenciaga in East Hampton Village in March.

The manager at Sag Harbor’s popular Corner Bar, told Sag Village police last Thursday morning that a patron who had become ill after eating a dish of mussels was harassing the restaurant.

After receiving a congratulatory call on the afternoon of July 27, an East Hampton woman thought she had won $25 million in a Publisher’s Clearing House giveaway. All she had to do to collect, said the caller, was to wire $850 to an undisclosed Chase Bank branch. She contacted police last Thursday after realizing she’d been scammed.

The criminal case against Charles Streep of East Hampton and Manhattan, stemming from a highly publicized altercation in a bank parking lot two summers ago, ended in December when Mr. Streep pleaded guilty to a greatly reduced charge of disorderly conduct. His adversary has since filed a civil case against him.

There were numerous reports of vandalism via spray paint and graffiti in East Hampton Village last Thursday, beginning with a police car that was parked in the lot behind headquarters on North Main Street. Someone sprayed its entire passenger-side blue.

Jay Rowe of Springs was sentenced to up to 12 years in state prison Thursday for the March 2021 kidnapping and robbery of a woman in Springs, an incident that began in the school parking lot around dismissal time.

A 21-year-old on a bicycle was struck by a Mercedes-Benz in East Hampton, but had only minor injuries.

Half a dozen drunken-driving charges were lodged this week, including for two incidents that happened on Napeague.

Just because there is flat water doesn’t mean lifeguards can relax. It was a green-flag day up at Maidstone Park last Thursday when lifeguards needed to call in a Jet Ski for assistance for a father and son who were swimming in the calm waters but got too close to the jetty on an incoming tide, according to John Ryan Jr., chief of the East Hampton Town’s lifeguards.

The house at 3 Spring Lane in Noyac where two young women died in an early-morning fire on Aug. 3 lacked the permit required under Southampton Town code for property owners who rent out their houses, the town confirmed this week. "There will be charges filed against the homeowners," an assistant town attorney said.

A woman pulled a 2018 Subaru into the North Main Street I.G.A. lot on Aug. 2 and suddenly realized she was in the wrong vehicle. It was identical to her own Subaru, parked someplace else.

Following a July 31 incident at the town-owned 140 Springs-Fireplace Road apartments, one man was charged with third-degree misdemeanor assault.

Southampton Town police officers, detectives, and bay constables along with the Suffolk County medical examiner are responding to an unidentified beach in the vicinity of Bay Point in Noyac, where a body has washed ashore.

Daniel Campbell of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., and Montauk pleaded guilty in Suffolk County Criminal Court on Friday to a single felony count of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death. Last August, Mr. Campbell was driving the S.U.V. that struck a Hong Kong teenager, Devesh Samtani.

Dramatic rescues may grab the most attention, but lifeguards in East Hampton Town and Village save more swimmers each week than the average beachgoer might realize.

Aiste Lukoseviciute of Montauk, 21, was sitting in the dunes at Kirk Beach Park on July 17 around 7 p.m. when a shot went off and hit her in the back of the head. East Hampton Town police found her bleeding heavily as a result of the shooting, which she initially thought had been a firework of some sort thrown in her direction.

A mini-sweep of underage alcohol sales at Montauk establishments on Saturday yielded misdemeanor charges for employees of two popular downtown watering holes.

Two accidents on East Hampton Town roads this week resulted in injuries.

Three people were charged with drunken driving on local roads within the last two weeks.

It has been nearly a year since the hit-and-run accident that caused the death of a Hong Kong teenager on a dark road in Amagansett, and the man behind the wheel could learn his fate as soon as Friday in Suffolk County Criminal Court.

On July 26, a woman who was said to be "tying plastic bags to village benches" left a "garbage-filled shopping cart" on a Gingerbread Lane sidewalk. Police canvassed the area but could not find her.

Jay Rowe of Springs, convicted in March of armed robbery, grand larceny, and kidnapping, turned himself in to officials at Suffolk Criminal Court in Riverside on Monday. According to East Hampton Town Police Capt. Chris Anderson, Mr. Rowe had failed to show up at his July 27 sentencing hearing.

Two sisters from Potomac, Md., visiting here with their family, died early Wedneday morning in a house fire on Spring Lane, off Noyac Road in Noyac. Lt. Susan Ralph of the Southampton Town police said the other members of the family were able to escape from the rented house. The son leapt from a second-floor window, she said.

Town police on Sunday arrested a Queens Village woman who they allege is responsible for the disappearance of 23 dozen eggs from the outdoor Iacono Farm stand on Long Lane.

Tinder-dry conditions and spiking temperatures were only two of the challenges firefighters faced as they worked to extinguish a brushfire that burned some 20 to 25 acres of grasslands in Hither Hills State Park on Friday night and then rekindled on Saturday. Equally challenging was the fire’s difficult-to-reach location between Goff Point and the Walking Dunes, more than a mile from any paved road.