Police & Courts

The East Hampton Town fire marshal's office is investigating the cause of a fire on Tuesday morning that "totaled" a Springs house, said Springs Fire Department Chief Tim Taylor. The family who lived there had gotten out safely by the time firefighters arrived.

A driver who East Hampton Town police said was intoxicated and his female passenger were seriously injured in an early morning crash on Monday in Montauk.

An Amagansett man was arrested after a police search of an apartment revealed mushrooms, Ecstasy, and a stolen handgun.

Fraudsters scammed an East Hampton Town resident on July 6. Posing over the phone as "the head of collections from PSEG," they told him his power would be shut off if he did not pay an outstanding balance of $2,556 immediately.

East Hampton Village police charged an 18-year-old from New York City with misdemeanor drunken driving on Saturday night, plus a laundry list of other misdoings.

Alcohol is reported to have played a part in an accident on June 25 at 1 p.m. in Amagansett. East Hampton Town Police said Jeffrey Sanderlin of Riverhead, 49, "failed to negotiate a curve in the roadway" where Old Stone Highway and Eastwood Court intersect. His 2004 Toyota veered off the road and hit a tree.

A Pheasant Woods Lane resident, not a fan of the bright floodlights installed on his shared driveway, called police around midnight Sunday to say he could not see to get into his own driveway. Police contacted the neighbors, who shut off the lights.

A pedestrian, a bicyclist, and a driver were injured in three separate accidents in Montauk in the last 11 days.

Caylynn McMaster, 27, was charged on the afternoon of June 20 with criminal possession of oxycodone and driving while impaired by drugs, both misdemeanors. East Hampton Town police said she had been driving erratically on Route 114, and that they found the car on Goodfriend Drive with her in the driver's seat apparently passed out. Asked to exit the car, she was "unsteady on her feet," according to the report, which said that 11 blue pills stamped "M30" were found in the center console of her 2014 Volkswagen. Ms. McMaster was held overnight and appeared in court before Justice Steven Tekulsky the next morning.

A Hand Lane resident told police last week that an assortment of jewelry belonging to his late wife had gone missing sometime this past year. Jewelry cases holding items valued at around $15,000 were discovered empty, a redacted police report said, when the man was going through his things for the pending sale of his house.

It was a normal Sunday with a good crowd at Main Beach, said Drew Smith, chief of East Hampton Village lifeguards, when, around 2 p.m., a teenage girl was caught in a rip current. "A lieutenant at Stand Two called, 'Heads up!' " he said, and another lieutenant guard, Andrew Wilson, raced through the waves to the girl, calmed her, and assisted her back to safety with a float.

Two passengers and a driver were injured recently in separate accidents on local roads.

The Coast Guard successfully rescued three fishermen in distress 72 nautical miles southeast of Montauk on Sunday evening after the crew abandoned its 44-foot commercial fishing vessel, the Nite Nurse, when it started taking on water and sinking.

Update, 3:20 p.m.: Montauk Highway in Amagansett has been reopened, according to the East Hampton Town Police Department.

An East Quogue man who allegedly stole a pickup truck in Riverhead on June 16 faces a grand total of nine charges after police stopped the white Ford F-150 truck on Industrial Road in Wainscott at about 5:30 p.m. that day.

Viktor Senchyshyn, 61, was charged with four felonies: criminal possession of stolen property, burglary, illegal entry with intent to commit a crime, and two counts of criminal mischief for causing over $250 damage to another person's property. 

A caller reported a dog alone in an unattended Hyundai on Park Place last Thursday morning. An officer said the dog seemed okay but waited for the return of the owner, who said that "the dog refused to get out of the vehicle and I was only gone for a moment."

In 2001, John Claflin and Dan Roman both walked through the Suffolk County Police Academy doors as new graduates. Last week, Lieutenant Claflin and Sergeant Roman took their final walk out of East Hampton Town Police Department headquarters. In between, the pair distinguished themselves as officers who "really got the job and really got the town," Chief Michael Sarlo said.

Two motorists were charged in recent weeks with driving while intoxicated, and in a non-alcohol-related incident, yet another tale of caution for summer bicyclists played out last Thursday

Jeffrey Kampner, 57, of Sag Harbor was arrested Friday on a misdemeanor charge of criminal obstruction of justice and second-degree harassment, a violation. Sag Harbor Village Police said that at 4 p.m. that day, a victim of a domestic incident told police she'd had an argument with her mother and locked herself in her bedroom. The mother's boyfriend, Mr. Kampner, broke down the door, she said; grabbed her by the neck, and forced her onto the bed.

Deer were in the headlights this week, causing three accidents in quick succession. One resulted in injury, sending 40-year-old E. Bonillabeernard of Ronkonkoma to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital for chest pain. An Amagansett ambulance took him there on Saturday at 6:45 a.m. after his 2017 Toyota hit a deer.

On the afternoon of June 9, a shopper bought a few things at Shine, a women's clothing boutique on Main Street in Montauk, but it also appeared that she'd left the store with three bracelets, a T-shirt, and a pair of shorts, all unpaid. Police found a woman matching an employee's description in the parking lot of Round Swamp Farm on South Elmwood Avenue, and took her back to the store, where she paid for the items and was told never to return. 

Three motorists were charged last week with driving while intoxicated, two in Sag Harbor and the third in Amagansett.

Last Thursday at 3 p.m., Cristian Tapia of Sag Harbor, 38, was pulled over at the Main Street-Brick Kiln Road intersection there. Officers charged him with aggravated D.W.I., a misdemeanor, and two violations, claiming he had changed lanes unsafely and had an open container of alcohol in the vehicle. He was held overnight for a Friday morning arraignment.

An East Hampton man arrested on May 28 found himself in trouble with town police again four days later, and it all started when a 2012 Dodge Ram pickup truck was reported stolen from an undisclosed location on Gingerbread Lane in East Hampton Village.

East Hampton Town and Sag Harbor Village police levied misdemeanor drunken driving charges against multiple drivers over the last 11 days.

Town police said that Justin Finney, 40, of Three Mile Harbor Road, East Hampton, was headed south on Cedar Street near Old Orchard Lane on May 30 around midnight when he drifted from the pavement and hit a street sign then a tree. An officer found him a short distance away from his 2003 Toyota. He seemed intoxicated, they said. Mr. Finney was held overnight and arraigned the next morning by Justice Rana.

Early on the evening of June 1, the presence of a homeless man outside Stop and Shop prompted two calls, but officers were unable to locate him. A man asleep in his silver Lincoln in the store's parking lot was the object of another call the next day. He told police he was about to go home. 

Injuries were reported in two traffic accidents last week, though neither required a trip to the hospital.

Despite the cold, rainy weather, a number of arrests over the last week signaled the start of the busy season on the South Fork.

A Maidstone Avenue woman told police on May 26 that her neighbor had moved survey stakes a foot or so from where they belonged, making her property that much smaller. She was advised that it was a civil matter.

Despite the unprecedented challenges of policing during a pandemic and nationwide scrutiny in the wake of multiple civilian deaths while in police custody, Chief Michael Sarlo was upbeat in summarizing the East Hampton Town Police Department's annual report to the town board.

Joseph Keane of Amagansett, 59, was driving a 2013 Toyota at about 5:30 p.m. on May 22 when, headed west on Amagansett Main Street, he attempted to make a left turn toward Bluff Road and struck a telephone pole. Mr. Keane, who has a previous conviction for driving while intoxicated within the past 10 years, could not perform roadside sobriety tests, reported East Hampton Town police, who charged him with felony D.W.I.