Amagansett Fatal Hit-and-Run Driver Gets 90 Days in Jail

A Montauk hit-and-run driver who fatally struck an 18-year-old college freshman in Amagansett and fled the scene last year was sentenced Thursday to 90 days in Suffolk County jail, outraging the victim’s family.

Judge Richard Ambro also ordered 450 hours of community service and five years or probation for Daniel Campbell, who had pleaded guilty at county court in August to leaving the scene of an accident.

Campbell, who was 19 at the time of the crash, had faced up to seven years in prison. Prosecutors and the victim’s family had asked the judge to sentence the driver, who is also a Westchester resident, to 1 to 3 years in prison.

“He is going to come back and his life is going to become fine in a few months, but for us, our family is gone for life,” Mala Samtani, mother of the victim, told reporters.

East Hampton Town Police have said that Campbell was driving a 2012 Honda Pilot northbound on Old Stone Highway when his car struck Davesh Samanti of Hong Kong near the corner of Eastwood Court at 11:35 p.m. on August 10, 2021.

Campbell fled the scene but was arrested at home about two hours later, police said. The victim was taken to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he later died three days later.

Samtani’s family said he was visiting the Hamptons — he, his cousin and a friend were at a party that was shut down by police prior to the hit-and-run crash — before moving to New York City to start school at New York University.

His family — manufacturers of various “As Seen on TV” gadgets — said that not long before his death, Samtani had written and published Ash’s Covid-19 Birthday Bash, a children’s book designed to help kids better understand the COVID-19 pandemic.