Felony DWI Charged After East Hampton Head-On Crash
An East Hampton woman is facing felony drunken driving charges after a head-on crash on Route 114 in East Hampton on Saturday evening, East Hampton Town police said.
Kaitlyn Kelly, 34, was driving a 1997 Ford when she veered across the double yellow lines and struck an oncoming Land Rover at about 7 PM. Police said Kelly was headed south when the Ford smashed into the Land Rover near Goodfriend Drive. Kelly told police she was swerving to avoid hitting a small animal that had run out onto the road, according to the accident report. Both vehicles were severely damaged.
Kelly, who suffered a pelvic injury, police said, was taken to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital after being placed under arrest.
A passenger in the Land Rover, Tetiana Khyrotvska, 27, of Brooklyn, also went to the hospital after complaining of chest pain. A two-year-old child in the Land Rover and the driver were not hurt.
Kelly was charged at the felony level due to a 2014 misdemeanor DWI conviction in Southampton. She will be arraigned in East Hampton Town Justice Court at a future date.
Town police made another felony drunken driving arrest in recent days.
At about 9:30 AM on June 10, police received a report that there was a white van headed east on Old Montauk Highway in Montauk at a high rate of speed. An officer spotted the white 2014 Mercedes Benz van on Main Street, just east of Old Montauk Highway. The driver was heading east on the shoulder of the road.
The officer, who was headed in the other direction, did a U-turn, and followed the Mercedes van down Main Street. The officer said the van continued its erratic path, swerving across lane lines as it turned into the circle at Carl Fisher Plaza, then onto South Edgemere Street, heading north. After being pulled over, the driver, Gerson Jonadab Ruiz-Lol, 28, of Flanders, was allegedly unsteady on his feet, and failed sobriety tests, leading to his arrest.
The drunken driving charge is a felony, as is an unlicensed driving charge, due to a 2014 conviction in Southampton Town Justice Court on a misdemeanor DWI charge.
He was arraigned the next morning and was released. It is not known at this time who the van is registered to. Police seized the van under Suffolk County law regarding felony DWI cases.
East Hampton Town police said that two Springs men they charged with DWI in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday had enough alcohol in their systems to justify a raised aggravated DWI charge.
Manuel Chillogalli, 42, is facing that charge at the felony level. He had been arrested on a misdemeanor charge of drunken driving in September 2013, and pled guilty to that crime in March of the following year. Because of that conviction, the new DWI charge is as a felony. Police said that they had received a complaint about a man sleeping in a parked 2002 Chevrolet on Church Lane in Springs at about 3:30 in the afternoon.
When an officer arrived, he reported that Chillogalli was asleep behind the wheel, with the engine running. Police said that when they awoke him, Chillogalli appeared to be intoxicated, and failed sobriety tests, leading to his arrest. At headquarters, a breath test produced an alleged reading of .21, raising the felony charge up to the aggravated level. Any reading of .18 or higher triggers the raised charge.
The other Springs man arrested was Omar Garcia, 30. He was allegedly driving a 2005 Ford when he was pulled over on Three Mile Harbor Road near Springy Banks Road for tailgating the car in front of him. He, too, failed sobriety tests, police said, and was placed under arrest at 2:07 PM. After being taken to headquarters, a breath test produced a reading of .22, police said. The aggravated DWI charge against Garcia is at the misdemeanor level, because it is his first offense, according to the police.
After spending Saturday night in separate holding cells at police headquarters, the two men were each arraigned via video conference on Sunday morning and released.
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