Police & Courts

No one was seriously injured an accident involving three vehicles that took down a utility pole and snarled traffic on Montauk Highway in East Hampton Village during the Monday evening commute. 

A fire gutted an unoccupied house in East Hampton packed with boxes and debris on Saturday afternoon as firefighters were met with several unexpected challenges. 

A 52-year-old East Hampton man was found sleeping behind the wheel of his car at about 12:25 p.m. on Jan. 3, according to East Hampton Town police.

A 64-year-old man told police he was getting out of the ocean near the first jetty on Georgia Beach at about 4:45 p.m. on Jan. 8, when a medium-size black-and-white dog aggressively chased him.

In the first installment of a three-part series, Shelley Gilbert, whose son, Thomas, is serving a 30-year term for murdering his father, talks about his childhood.

Suffolk County Police homicide detectives arrested a man they said punched Wayne Sapiane in the head in Riverhead on Jan. 2.  Mr. Sapiane, who was 65, later died. 

Prosecutors said that black box data from Lisa Rooney's pickup truck show she was traveling 85 miles per hour just before the truck struck and killed a bicyclist in Montauk this fall. 

Wayne Sapiane, a guest at Maureen’s Haven on New Year’s Eve, was assaulted two days later and found in downtown Riverhead with a serious head injury. He died Sunday night. 

As of Jan. 1, when New York State’s controversial new bail reform laws took effect, 301 inmates in Suffolk County jails had been released. The new laws, which mandate that those charged with misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies be released without bail following arraignment, have triggered anger across the state as people accused of serious crimes walk free.

A Montauk man was arrested there on the evening of Dec. 27 after East Hampton Town police said he had intentionally broken the side-view mirror of a 2018 Range Rover.

A 56-year-old man was charged with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor, on Dec. 23 after crashing a 1997 Ford van into bushes off Route 27 in Montauk near Ditch Plain Road.

On New Year’s Day, fighting against imminent darkness and weather, East Hampton Marine Patrol officers rescued two duck hunters stranded in their boat off Louse Point in Springs and holding on to a navigation buoy.

A 68-year-old man was seen in the 7-Eleven parking lot at about 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 28, urinating into a jar.

A 17-year-old girl went to the East Hampton High School resource officer on Dec. 4 to report that she has been receiving harassing messages through her Instagram account since October.

Lisa Rooney of Montauk faces 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison but remains free without bail under New York State’s new bail reform law.

The news stories that captured East Hampton Star readers' attention in 2019 include headlines involving murder, drunken-driving crashes, major drug busts, fires, and a shooting.  

A fire Saturday morning in a Water Mill home owned by the publishing heiress Anne Hearst caused major damage to the 17,000-square-foot house, though Ms. Hearst and several family members escaped uninjured. Firefighters were able to rescue two cats and a substantial amount of artwork.    

The parents of a 15-year-old were arrested Friday night after East Hampton Village police found teenagers drinking at a house party at 26 The Circle.

The Southampton Town fire marshal investigating the cause said that between the size of the residence and the way it had been built, the fire proved difficult to put out, with pockets of flames popping up from behind walls well into the evening.

Rogue embers, still smoldering in a fireplace at an East Hampton house, erupted into flames in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Two accused murderers spent Christmas behind bars while their cases remained pending in Suffolk County Criminal Court in Riverhead.

A man arrested in October for allegedly forcing a woman he had just met to perform a sex act on him pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in East Hampton Town Justice Court, but will have to register as a sex offender.

Did someone lose a Christmas card? An envelope with a card inside and a $20 bill was found on Main Street Saturday afternoon and turned in to police. The card thanked “Ricky and the entire North Haven Village staff.” A Sag Harbor Village officer dropped it off at North Haven Village Hall.

Parks police are investigating a death in Montauk's Camp Hero State Park, believed to be a suicide, on the day before Christmas. 

The owner of Village Hardware in East Hampton was arrested Saturday on a child endangerment charge in an incident that police say happened in the store on Oct. 13.

East Hampton Village police arrested a 23-year-old woman who they said bounced two checks this fall and used an American Express credit card account that did not belong to her to pay for services at the Elegant Touch Nail Spa.     

East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky has dismissed two misdemeanor charges against Matthew Hunt, a 21-year-old would-be sailor from Arizona who ran his used sailboat onto a Montauk beach in September just two days after buying it on eBay.     

On one of the coldest days of the year, a fire broke out in a large house in Bridgehampton Thursday afternoon. 

Police were given a piece of litter with a man’s name on it at Main Beach on Friday afternoon. An officer contacted the man, who claimed that garbage must have fallen out accidentally when he opened his car door the night before. He picked up the litter from the officer.

Randy Hoffman, a dedicated volunteer who has responded to a few thousand calls over the course of his 12-year involvement with the emergency medical system on the South Fork, helping countless patients and in some instances literally saving their lives, now finds himself a patient in need.