Police & Courts

Former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas J. Spota and his top chief aide, Christopher McPartland, were found guilty Tuesday on felony charges related to their attempt to cover up the beating of a prisoner by the disgraced Suffolk police chief James Burke in 2012. 

The owner of Petit Bleu, a children’s store in East Hampton Village, who was cited by code enforcement last month for placing two stuffed golden retrievers, one adorned with a “welcome” sign, at the entrance to her shop, contested the summons in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Monday. 

David R. Kent, 39, of East Hampton was arrested on a drug charge on Dec. 4. During a search, East Hampton Town police said, they found a small baggie containing a white powdery substance that later tested positive for cocaine in the center console of his 1985 Chevrolet.

When a small bird, possibly a yellowtail warbler, was trapped under a Jeep whose driver stopped on Gingerbread Lane just before noon on Dec. 2, an East Hampton Fire Department chief who was driving down the street came to the rescue.

Commissioner elections were held in four fire districts that are in charge of fire and emergency medical services in East Hampton Town on Tuesday, but only one of them — Montauk — had a contested race. There, William Pitts was the winner in a field of three.

Lisa Rooney, who was charged with drunken driving after she struck and killed a bicyclist in Montauk in late October, had a blood-alcohol content of .13 more than three hours after the crash, a toxicology report has shown. The legal limit is .08.

Voters will go to the polls on Tuesday to elect fire district commissioners, whose job it is to oversee tax dollars spent on fire services, emergency medical care, and other duties.

Someone reported an erratic driver, possibly intoxicated, on Thanksgiving Day. The caller reported seeing two young women with a small child get into a gray Honda Pilot and speed off up Main Street to Newtown Lane at about 6:30 p.m.

A Springs man stands charged with drunken driving and reckless endangerment this week, accused of running into two people in their driveway on Sunday evening.

A fire broke out Friday night in an outbuilding at Marders, a garden shop and nursery in Bridgehampton. Smoke billowed out from the property, behind the Bridgehampton Commons, as firefighters worked to put out the blaze.

A man with two names, wanted after he failed to show up in Suffolk District Court five years ago to answer a drunken-driving charge, was arrested in East Hampton last week, charged once again with driving while intoxicated.

A woman charged with drunken driving in a fatal crash in Montauk on Halloween Eve was to have appeared in East Hampton Town Justice Court last Thursday, but the case has been adjourned — leaving the victim’s family and friends disheartened — because she is in an in-patient rehab program.

Several sections of picket fence at the South End Cemetery near the intersection of James Lane and Mill Road were found damaged at about 2:40 a.m. on Nov. 19.

Responding to community complaints, Sag Harbor Village police conducted an investigation into reports of alcoholic beverages being sold to minors at the Gulf Gas Station convenience store on Hampton Street.

Another swastika, the second one found recently in East Hampton Town, has turned up, but police did not call it  a hate crime and say the two incidents do not appear to be related. This one takes aim at Democrats.

A 25-year-old woman arrested early at about 1:15 a.m. on Friday on a drunken-driving charge in Sag Harbor Village kicked an officer and was taken for a mental health evaluation after she threatened to kill herself while in police custody.

Police cited a 54-year-old village resident after a large smoky fire was reported in the area of Glover Street Saturday afternoon. The man had been burning beanbag chairs and other refuse on his front lawn.

A Sag Harbor school bus was involved in a head-on collision with a sport utility vehicle in Bridgehampton on Wednesday afternoon.

Patchita Tennant's attorney says the prosecution's version of events has changed, but their position that she was the victim of abuse and not the aggressor that night will not change.

An East Hampton woman crashed into the new CVS Pharmacy building on Montauk Highway Monday night and was charged afterward with driving while intoxicated, a felony due to a prior conviction.

On Nov. 4 at about 12:30 a.m., officers assisted an East Hampton man in getting his 2017 Chevrolet Silverado off Wiborg’s Beach. The pickup truck was stuck on the beach close to the water line. After helping him, they ticketed him for driving on the beach without a permit.

In response to community complaints, East Hampton Town police went undercover on the afternoon of Nov. 3 and arrested a woman who was selling cigarettes in the town park at Abraham’s Path in Amagansett.

The National Transportation Safety Board faults Ben and Bonnie Krupinski's pilot, Jon Dollard, for the plane crash that killed him, the Krupinskis, and their 22-year-old grandson off Amagansett in June of 2018.

Four men have been indicted on charges of operating as major drug traffickers, a top felony offense, in the alleged drug ring that the Suffolk County District Attorney's office said last month was responsible for distributing more than $1 million worth of heroin on or near the Shinnecock Indian Reservation. 

After news of John James Usma-Quintero’s death reached Colombia, many were angry that the driver had been let out on such low bail. “We don’t want any other family to go through this pain,” his brother said.

Patchita Tennant, a well-liked manager at the CVS pharmacy on Pantigo Road in East Hampton, was indicted last week on new, upgraded charges that include the attempted murder of her boyfriend in their Flanders home in September.

Last Thursday evening in Sag Harbor, village police charged a woman with misdemeanor drunken driving after an officer saw that her older model Mercedes had no lights, either headlights or taillights.

A homeless man contacted police with a complaint about UPS on Friday. He was advised to follow up with the company’s complaint department and said he would.

A swastika and some writing in Spanish were found spray-painted on a large rock in Springs last week, raising community concern of a hate crime, though police believe it was an isolated incident that was the work of juveniles.

A drug dealer was arrested after a teenager "ingested an unknown type of drug" in East Hampton Village on Halloween, village police said.