Police

Blotter: Cutchogue man charged with driving Porsche while drunk

Erwin Gruber of Cutchogue was charged with DWI just after 4 a.m. Nov. 26, after he was stopped for operating a 2003 Porsche westbound on Route 48 in Peconic at a high rate of speed and without a front license plate.

Police said Mr. Gruber was unsteady on his feet and failed several field sobriety tests. He was taken to headquarters and held for a morning arraignment.

• Maryann Walsh, 38, who has no known address, was charged with disorderly conduct just after 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 28, after she was found lying on the sidewalk in the Mattituck shopping center. Police said that while they were interviewing Ms. Walsh, she pulled her pants down to urinate. She was taken to headquarters and held for arraignment.

• Fernando Mendoza, 18, of East Marion was arrested for littering just after 9 p.m. on Nov. 21, when he threw a lit cigarette on the ground after being asked by police where he was coming from while walking on Route 25 in Southold, according to reports. Police said they received a call that someone had knocked on a door in the area, and Mr. Mendoza was seen not long after that, walking with another person “in a highly intoxicated condition” down Route 25. According to reports Mr. Mendoza became irate and threw the cigarette on the road’s shoulder when questioned. He was taken to headquarters, processed and released on an appearance ticket.

• An 86-year-old Southold woman reported to police that she received a call on Nov. 21 from someone claiming to be her grandson, who said that he had been arrested in Spain and asked her to send payments of $2,350 each to him and a lawyer. After the woman sent the Western Union payments from King Kullen in Cutchogue, she contacted her daughter and discovered that her grandson had not been arrested in Spain. Police are investigating.

• A Sayville man whose daughter was a patient at the psychiatric unit at Eastern Long Island Hospital threatened a doctor and threatened to blow up the hospital in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, after learning that his daughter would not be released from the facility, according to police reports. A doctor at ELIH reported that the man said he worked for a Mafia-run union that would assist him in threatening the hospital, and said the man claimed to have been on the phone with President Obama, who had asked the government to investigate the hospital. The Suffolk County Police Department followed up on the bomb threat, and the hospital requested extra patrols over the holiday weekend, according to police reports.

• The owner of a Beach Road, Greenport, cottage discovered Nov. 25 that the copper piping had been stolen after he heard water gushing from beneath the sink when he turned on a faucet. With the assistance of police, he visited his neighbors’ houses, and found that five of his neighbors had also had the copper piping cut from their plumbing. The property manager of a Sandy Beach Road, Greenport, beach community also reported Nov. 27 that the pipes had been cut out of an outdoor shower and that at a neighboring property that he takes cares of on Sandy Beach Road, 80 feet of copper pipe had been removed. Detectives are investigating.

• A Camp Mineola Road, Mattituck, resident reported Nov. 23 that someone entered his house between 5 and 7 p.m. through an unlocked sliding glass door and stole a bag of silver spoons and a safe filled with jewelry.

• On Nov. 24 a Pennsylvania woman reported the theft of her purse from the bathroom of a Mattituck bar. She later discovered that someone had used her credit card at the Cutchogue Valero station and 7-Eleven. Police could not identify the thief through either store’s video surveillance system. The investigation is ongoing.

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.