2024 in Review: The Year in East End News

As the sun sets on 2024, it’s high time to take a look back on the most impactful local news headlines from Hamptons and the North Fork over the past 12 months.

CELEBRITIES GONE WILD

Hamptons summers are typically good for a few salacious celebrity stories, and this year provided a bumper crop for the paparazzi.

Kicking off a trifecta of high-profile trouble was “Cry Me a River” singer and Trolls movie franchise star Justin Timberlake, who was arrested for driving while intoxicated on June 18 in Sag Harbor just as he was about to embark on his world tour. He pleaded guilty in village court on Sept. 13 to a lesser charge of driving while ability impaired and agreed to make a public service announcement for others to learn from his mistake.

Less than a week after that traffic violation case was closed, federal authorities arrested rapper and producer Sean “Diddy” Combs on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Diddy pleaded not guilty, but remains jailed while he awaits trial after a judge denies his request for bail. The charges stem from Diddy’s so-called “freak off” parties, some of which were held at an East Hampton mansion he used to own.

A month after that, former longtime Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries was also arrested on federal sex trafficking charges that he pleaded not guilty to. Jeffries and his codefendants allegedly lured men to be models and then coerced them into performing sex acts against their will at his Water Mill mansion and other locations. He is free on a $10 million bond.

Offering some uplifting local celebrity news was the late “Margaritaville” singer Jimmy Buffett, who was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

ELECTORAL TURNOVER

This year’s local electron results were relatively uneventful compared to last year’s unprecedented sea change of all five East End town supervisors, both local county legislators, and the county executive. But the turnover this year involved two of the most tenured lawmakers.

Southampton Town Councilman Tommy Schiavoni, a Democrat, defeated Shelter Island Town Attorney Stephen Kiely, a Republican, in the race to replace retiring Assemblyman Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor), who declined to seek re-election this year after representing New York State’s 1st Assembly District for 30 years.

The other longtime incumbent who left office this year was founding West Hampton Dunes Village Mayor Gary Vegliante, who led the village for three decades, making him the longest serving mayor on Long Island until Irwin Krasnow unseated him in June.

Krasnow’s win was one of a half dozen village electoral upsets this summer, when two West Hampton Dunes trustees, two Sagaponack trustees and the deputy mayor of Southampton Village were ousted as well.

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

This year also saw some major updates involving three of the five elements — Earth, water, and air.

January ushered in back-to-back winter storms that flooded Montauk, where the $1.7 billion Fire Island to Montauk Point (FIMP) project finally arrived to rebuild the beach after a half century of planning.

Then in March, all 12 South Fork Wind turbines went online 35 miles off the coast of Montauk, making it the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in the nation, powering 70,000 of Long Island Power Authority’s 1.2 million customers. An even bigger project dubbed Sunrise Wind started soon after.

And this month, the Town of Southampton took aim at the local sand mining industry, proposing legislation that would effectively put the remaining mines — long the subject of complaints and litigation — out of business.

JOINTS FOR SALE

Three years after New York State legalized recreational marijuana for adults older than 21, the first cannabis dispensaries finally opened in recent months on the East End.

Brown Buddha debuted in Hampton Bays, Strain Stars opened in Riverhead and You Gotta Beleaf set up shop in Calverton — with more on the horizon.

MURDERS MOST FOUL

The Twin Forks suffered tragedies and got justice for some cold cases this year as well.

Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann was charged in June with the 1993 murder of Sandra Castilla, whose body was found in the Hamptons hamlet of North Sea — the coldest of all the cold cases he’s been charged with yet. He was also charged this year with the murders of Valerie Mack and Jessica Taylor, whose remains were found in Manorville in 2000 and 2003, respectively, with some of their remains also found near Gilgo. He pleaded not guilty and remains jailed without bail pending his trial.

It wasn’t the only shocker this summer. Jeremy Allen pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the brutal torture and slaying of his 43-year-old lifelong friend Christopher Hahn in the supect’s East Quogue home.

Also drawing national headlines was the murder of 33-year-old Sabina Rosas at Shou Sugi Ban House, a luxury resort in Water Mill. The man police suspected of killing her was laid found to have died by suicide in Pennsylvania.

TRIBAL CLASHES

This year the Shinnecock Nation saw Lisa Goree become the first woman elected chair of its council of trustees. The tribe was also dealt a setback when an appeals court issued a ruling that the Shinnecock’s electronic billboards should have been blocked by an injunction by a lower court — a ruling the tribe is appealing. And the Town of Southampton this month moved to sue the Shinnecock to black construction of a gas station in tribal property in Hampton Bays.

Also this month, Gov. Kathy Hochul issued the seventh veto of a bill to grant New York State recognition to the Montaukett Nation.

TRUMP’S PICKS

President-elect Donald Trump has so far nominated three prospective cabinet members with East End ties.

He tapped billionaire financier and former Hamptons homeowner Scott Bessent to serve as the next secretary of treasury. He selected ex-U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), the former congressman for the East End, to serve as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. And he nominated Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, a Jericho native who owns a home in Bridgehampton, to be the next U.S. Secretary of Commerce.