Police & Courts

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. 

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.

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

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.

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.

Two saves on the water over the holiday weekend were efficient and without major injury, a good warm-up for chaotic summer months likely to come. One involved a kiteboarder tangled in his equipment and the other a pair of inflatable boats, each with five people on board, that were caught in two-to-three-foot waves in significant winds.

Highlights of a quiet week included a report of "a dog appearing to be a pit bull" wandering on Newtown Lane without an owner at 9 p.m. on May 17. Police did not find it.

Stephanie McNamara Bitis, a former general manager of Long Island Radio Broadcasting, admitted in November to using a company credit card for more than 600 personal expenses, but it wasn't until last week that her attorney and the assistant United States attorney prosecuting the case agreed on the exact dollar figure involved.

East Hampton Town Police reported that on the evening of May 12, Hai Cao of Amagansett did not see a jogger as he turned left in his 2015 Toyota from Cedar Street onto Osborne Lane in East Hampton. Mr. Cao reportedly said to police that his view was limited and by the time he saw the jogger, Tint Juri of East Hampton, crossing from one side of Osborne Lane to the other, he could not avoid hitting him.

After receiving a complaint last Thursday night concerning a sexual relationship between a 26-year-old man and a minor under the age of 17, East Hampton Town police arrested Byron Torres of Daniel's Hole Road in Wainscott on charges of statutory rape. Contact between the two, police said, was from around Feb. 1 to April 30.

Police this week charged one person with driving while intoxicated and booked seven others on traffic and trespassing misdemeanors.