News

Southold Blotter: Teen uninjured after falling asleep at the wheel

Riders aboard an eastbound Long Island Rail Road train discovered last Friday night that snow can be more powerful than a speeding locomotive.
Police were called in to rescue 25 stranded travelers after a train hit a snowdrift a half-mile east of Cox Lane in Cutchogue and its engine shut down. Town police were alerted at about 8:30 p.m. by a Southold man whose wife had called him on her cell phone.
Town and MTA police brought the passengers to Cox Lane, where they boarded a bus provided by the MTA to continue their trips to Southold and Greenport.

• A lucky Northport teen was uninjured after he fell asleep at the wheel and drifted off the road while driving on Route 48 in Southold just after 9 a.m. Monday, according to police. Nicholas Stasichin’s vehicle struck a snow embankment on the shoulder and then slid along a guard rail for 250 feet, passing between a telephone pole and a tree and coming to rest atop another snowbank in front of a church, police reported. The Southold Fire Department rescue squad responded to the scene. Mr. Stasichin was unhurt, according to police.

• Diana Minogue, 77, of Mattituck was taken to Peconic Bay Medical Center by the Mattituck Fire Department rescue squad on the afternoon of Jan. 21, after a car she was driving skidded on a patch of snow, spun around and hit a tree on New Suffolk Avenue in Mattituck, police reported.

• Efrain Alajandro Cuellar Andrade, 26, of Greenport was arrested and charged with DWI–drugs and unlicensed operation just after noon on Jan. 20, after he was pulled over for rolling through a stop sign in Greenport. Police said they smelled marijuana in the car and that Mr. Andrade confessed to smoking it before he began driving. Police said they also found there was an active bench warrant from Riverhead Town for Mr. Andrade. He also was handed tickets for passing a stop sign and a seatbelt violation.

• A resident of First Street in Greenport reported a burglary at her home on Jan. 17. The victim told police that someone entered her residence through an unlocked front door sometime between 10 a.m. and 2:44 p.m.; stole a PlayStation 3, three PlayStation game cartridges and a microphone from her living room; and destroyed a padlock on her bedroom door, according to police reports.

• Angel Louise Colon, 39, of Greenport was arrested for aggravated unlicensed operation at the intersection of Third and Center streets in Greenport, after he was stopped by police for driving without headlights just after midnight on Jan. 23. Police said Mr. Colon also had an active bench warrant from 2010 from the Southold Town Justice Court, but they would not release details of that case.

• Oliver Fernandez, 45, of Greenport was charged with disorderly conduct on the evening of Jan. 20, after police responded just before 8 p.m. to a complaint of an intoxicated man outside the laundromat on Adams Street. Police said Mr. Fernandez walked to the corner of the building and urinated in front of the officers while they were interviewing him. Mr. Fernandez was taken to headquarters and held for a morning arraignment.

• A 31-year-old Cutchogue woman reported to police that she was hit in the face by a 21-year-old Cutchogue man outside a bar on Pike Street in Mattituck just before 1 a.m. on Jan. 17. A criminal summons for a harassment charge against the man has been requested from the Southold Town Justice Court. No further information was immediately available.
Those who are named in police reports have not been convicted of any crime or violation. The charges against them may later be reduced or withdrawn, or they may be found innocent.