Just released! Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police Fifth Squad detectives are seeking the public’s help to identify and locate the man pictured who allegedly used a stolen credit card.
The man allegedly used a stolen credit card to make two purchases, totaling approximately $32, at 7- Eleven, located at 3785 Horseblock Road, on February 5 at approximately 4:30 p.m. The card had been stolen from a locker at Planet Fitness in Medford earlier in the day.
Suffolk County Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information about these incidents can contact Suffolk County Crime Stoppers to submit an anonymous tip by calling 1-800-220-TIPS, utilizing a mobile app which can be downloaded through the App Store or Google Play by searching P3 Tips, or online at www.P3Tips.com. All calls, text messages and emails will be kept confidential.
Ben Brown and his wife Maggie. Photo courtesy of Ben and Maggie Brown.
By Daniel Dunaief
Baseball has been Setauket product Ben Brown’s ticket to ride, or, perhaps, more appropriately, ticket to fly.
The 25-year old Ward Melville High School graduate, whose debut season in Major League Baseball was cut short last year by a neck injury, joined the Chicago Cubs this year for spring training.
Even days before the Chicago Cubs prepared to make a trip across the world to Japan, Brown wasn’t sure if he and his wife Maggie would make the longest flight of his life.
“He only knew a couple of days before that he was going,” said Ben’s mother Jo-Anne Wilson. “Then, they’re scrambling to get people to stay at home and watch their dogs.”
While Brown’s mother was thrilled that her son could enjoy an international trip on a world baseball stage, she had some parental anxiety.
“The night I knew he’d be landing at 3 am, I was still up,” Wilson said. She was greatly relieved when her son texted her.
“I could breathe again,” she laughed. Even though Ben is her third child, she can’t outgrow her parental concern for the well-being of her children.
“I’m sure he was surprised when I texted back within half a second,” said Wilson, who promptly fell asleep after the brief exchange.
Brown’s father Jody Brown was more concerned about jet leg, as Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time and 16 hours ahead of the time in Mesa, Arizona, where the Cubs play their spring training games.
Memorable trip to the Embassy
Ben Brown meeting up with another WMHS graduate Anthony Kay, who is also a pitcher. Kay is playing for the Yokohama DeNa BayStars. Photo courtesy of Maggie Brown
Brown’s parents connected with Ben a few times by FaceTime while their son and his conspicuous six foot, six inch frame were traveling around Japan.
The Japanese public was “friendly and so welcoming,” said Wilson. “The kids were very respectful when they were approaching the players for autographs.”
That presented a contrast to some young fans in the United States, who can be aggressive when seeking autographs or pictures with baseball players.
A trip to the American Embassy, where the Cubs attended a party, was a highlight of the journey.
“He said, ‘Mom, you’ve never seen anything like it in your life,’” Wilson said, recalling her son’s delight at the colorful and well-presented offerings. “He never left a table” filled with every type of sushi imaginable.
Brown was impressed with the immaculate condition of the streets.
Brown’s wife Maggie learned about the expectations for garbage the hard way. She had eaten a pastry and was carrying a coffee cup. When she went to throw her garbage in a can in a fish market, she was reprimanded for trying to discard items that didn’t come from the market. People expect to put items in their own trash cans.
The Browns visited Anthony Kay, who is pitching for the Yokohama DeNa Baystars and is another Ward Melville baseball star, while they were in Tokyo.
A well-watched opening game
The first game of the season was a huge draw in Japan, with an estimated 25 million people watching the Cubs and the defending World Series Champion Dodgers take the field at the Tokyo Dome.
Ben Brown interacting with autograph seekers. Photo courtesy of Maggie Brown
Over 42,000 people flocked to the stadium, paying anywhere between $2,000 and $19,000 a seat, according to Fox News 11 Los Angeles. Three players from the defending World Series champions are Japanese, including hitting superstar Shohei Ohtani, and pitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki. The Japanese players from the Cubs are pitcher Shota Imanaga, who started game one, and outfielder Seiya Suzuki.
Back in Setauket, Brown’s parents got up to watch the start of the game at 6:10 am, sitting down with a cup of coffee.
Imanaga threw four hitless and scoreless innings, allowing four walks and striking out two.
The right handed throwing Brown came on to pitch in the fifth inning.
After striking out Miguel Rojas, Brown walked Andy Pages, bringing up Ohtani. The Dodgers left-handed hitting star laced the team’s first hit of the season, a single to right fight.
By the end of the inning, Brown had given up three runs, two of which were earned, on three hits.
Brown pitched an impressive fifth and sixth inning, recording four additional strike outs, including of Ohtani.
Brown’s brother James Neppell, who is 15 years older than Ben and who helped ignite his passion for the sport, was pleased with his brother’s outing and with his approach to Ohtani during the superstar’s second at bat.
“He struck him out on three pitches” Neppell said proudly. “That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”
Brown’s father was pleased with his son’s 14 swings and misses, “which is more than any pitcher on the Cubs or the Dodgers” that day as well as the five strike outs.
The Dodgers won the first game 4-1, as Brown took the loss.
The Browns shared the excitement of the trip with their son from a distance, while they also mirrored some of his activities on Long Island.
“We had sushi while he was gone,” Jody Brown said.
Next steps
Just before a spring training outing against the Atlanta Braves earlier this week, Ben found out he had been named the club’s fifth starting pitcher.
Brown and his wife Maggie. Photo courtesy of Ben and Maggie Brown
“It’s a real honor,” Brown said during an interview with an MLB broadcast after his 75-pitch outing in which he allowed two earned runs in four and a third innings against the Braves. “To say that you’re a part [of the team] from day one is pretty incredible.”
Brown suggested that the engagement of the fans, which he likened to European soccer style chants, was a “real blast.”
Jody Brown recalls how travel baseball, which now includes a trip across the world, started when his son was young.
“I remember his first [baseball] trip when he was eight years old to Maryland,” said Brown. “The local coach called and said, ‘We need him to come.’ I thought, ‘That’s crazy.’ That was the start.”
At around that same time years ago, Neppell told his friends he thought his brother might make it to the major leagues. His friends, who thought he was crazy at the time, are impressed that the 33rd round pick by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2017 draft has come this far.
The Browns appreciate the thrilling ride they have taken with their son.
“We’re on the same journey,” said Wilson. “We’re enjoying every minute of it, even the stress.”
Three Village Central School District Superintendent Kevin Scanlon has released a letter addressing incidents of antisemitism within the schools, acknowledging a growing concern and outlining steps to combat hate speech through new programs and curriculum changes.
Next, we sit down with Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina, who reflects on his first months in office, shares his vision for the department, and discusses key public safety issues facing the county.
Finally, we turn to the world of sports as Setauket’s own Ben Brown, a rising star in Major League Baseball, embarks on an international journey with the Chicago Cubs. We’ll take you inside his exciting trip to Japan and his first spring training game with the Cubs, plus how his family is experiencing this thrilling moment from back home.
Stay tuned for all that and more, right here on The Pressroom Afterhour.
Suffolk County Police Homicide Squad and Arson Section detectives are investigating a house fire that killed a man in Medford on March 31.
Sixth Precinct officers responded to a residence on Dourland Road at approximately 7:15 a.m. after multiple 911 callers reported a fire at the location. After the fire was extinguished, resident Christopher Arsenault, 65, was found deceased in the home.
Arsenault lived on the property that was also the location for Happy Cat Sanctuary. There were 300 cats inside at the time of the fire and officials say the owner went back into the home to rescue the animals. Over 100 cats perished in the fire.
According to a post by Strong Island Animal Rescue, foster families are needed to help care for the surviving cats.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
This month New Yorkers were blanketed with scam text messages requesting payment of unpaid tolls. Another growing text based scam involves receiving messages from “wrong numbers” where the scammer attempts to then engage in casual conversation in order to befriend the victim and steal information. Perpetrators are utilizing increasingly sophisticated techniques and deceptive practices like these to trick people into providing access to their most valuable data.
In recent years phishing, smishing, and vishing have become three of the most common attack vectors, among a dizzying array of others for compromising personal identifiers, valuable data, mobile phones, and computers. In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission reported $12.5 billion in fraud related losses suffered by the American public with identity theft and imposter scams comprising two of the top three categories.
Phishing is a scam where an attacker sends an electronic communication, usually an email, attempting to obtain access to financial accounts or other protected data, typically by getting a victim to click a link or enter personal information into a fake website. Other variations on this technique include vishing, typically done utilizing a voice call and smishing, a deception attempt via a text message. These are just a few of the common types of attacks, among many others, and it’s becoming quite a challenge to discern truth from deception.
In the realm of enterprise level cybersecurity, a best practice for keeping attackers out of networks is to adopt a “default deny” approach, that is, to block all access to business systems unless explicitly permitted via an allow list. Following this perspective to protect personal devices and accounts can also be beneficial to stopping bad guys by denying all attempts of communication from unknown numbers and email addresses.
When an email is received from an entity purporting to be a financial institution requesting personal information, never respond. Deny this solicitation by default and call the institution directly to verify the request. With text messages from an unknown number, stop the smishing attempt by not responding and immediately deleting the message, or call the sender directly to verify the legitimacy of their request. Individuals should never click on any links.
Vishing scams, which historically have been based on simple phone calls from people attempting to persuade victims to reveal valuable information, have now unfortunately evolved into attackers scouring social media accounts for the names of family members and even obtaining samples of their voices through pretext phone calls, then tailoring a targeted scam with an artificial “deepfake” call from the alleged family member. Again, in this case protection is achieved by denying the scammer from the outset and calling that family member or friend directly to verify.
Retirees are particularly vulnerable because they are less likely to be aware of the evolving cyber criminal landscape through work based training programs and are more accustomed to trusting historically dependable methods of communication like basic voice phone calls. The sad truth is that a high level of skepticism of all communications is necessary to combat these threats and protect important financial and personal data in both personal and professional environments. If any type of communication or correspondence is unusual, opt for a default deny approach.
Individuals who are victimized should contact the impacted financial institution to report and prevent further monetary damage. Concerns relative to stolen identity can be addressed by following the steps listed at www.identitytheft.gov. Unfortunately, cyber criminal investigations can be quite challenging due to the international nexus of most incidents; however, reports should be made to your local police department as well as to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
Frank Artusa is a current cybersecurity professional and retired FBI Special Agent.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel 'The Great Gatsby' is published on April 10.
The month of April has been home to many historical events over the years. Here’s a look at some that helped to shape the world in April 1925.
• King Yeta III of Barotseland and the Lozi people in what is now Zambia abolishes the corvée on April 1 in the British colony of Northern Rhodesia. The corvée is a system of forced labor that is considered the last vestige of slavery in the colony.
• On April 2, Harry Pierpont is arrested in Detroit for a string of bank robberies across Indiana and Michigan. Pierpont escapes from prison eight years later and ultimately joins John Dillinger in committing numerous additional bank robberies.
• Henry Ford begins running a private air freight service between Detroit and Chicago on April 2.
• On April 4, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg agrees to run in the second round of the German presidential election in place of Karl Jarres, who had won the first round. Jarres withdrew his name prior to the second round, paving the way for Hindenburg’s candidacy and ultimate victory.
• Several men working for criminal Al Capone severely assault investigative reporter Robert St. John on April 6. St. John had previously authored several pieces exposing Capone’s criminal empire in Cicero, Illinois.
• Adolf Hitler formally renounces his Austrian citizenship on April 7. Hitler would remain stateless and ineligible for public office until being granted German citizenship in early 1932.
• In conjunction with the British Colonial Office, the Australian government announces a plan on April 8 to encourage nearly half a million British citizens to relocate to Australia. The government offers low-interest loans and skills training to entice people to move.
• A demonstration against Lord Balfour in Damascus ends with two people dead and 11 wounded on April 9. The protests were a response to Balfour’s promotion of Jewish interests in Palestine. Balfour would depart Damascus in haste a day after the demonstration.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is published on April 10.
• Police in Denver, Colorado, carry out a raid on Good Friday on April 10. More than 200 people, including bootleggers and gamblers, are arrested. The raid was ordered by Denver Mayor Benjamin F. Stapleton, a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK had benefitted from many of the institutions targeted during the raid, which prompted the organization to strip Stapleton of his membership months later.
• The James Simpson-Roosevelt Asiatic Expedition departs New York City on April 11. The expedition aimed to collect wildlife species from mountainous regions in Asia, and would ultimately return with thousands of specimens.
• Women are granted the right to vote in the Dominion of Newfoundland on April 13.
• Anarchists open fire on the vehicle of Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria on April 14. Though King Boris is grazed by a bullet and two of his companions are killed, the assassination attempt fails.
• The Caterpillar Tractor Company is founded upon the merger of Holt Manufacturing Company and the C.L. Best Tractor Company on April 15.
• After consuming an excessive amount of hot dogs and soda, Babe Ruth undergoes surgery on April 17. Ruth had collapsed on a team train 10 days earlier and is treated for what doctors characterized as an intestinal abscess.
• The Communist Party of Korea is founded in Japanese-ruled Korea on April 17.
• The use of a sign shaped like a shield is standardized as the way to identify federally funded highways in the United States on April 20.
• The entire crew of the Japanese cargo ship S.S. Raifuku Maru perishes when the ship sinks in a storm on April 21. The ship was transporting wheat from the U.S. to Germany but rescue efforts failed due to stormy conditions.
• Franz Kafka’s novel, Der Prozess (later translated in English as The Trial), is published posthumously on April 26. Kafka, a relative unknown at the time of the book’s publication, died of tuberculosis roughly nine months earlier.
• France begins air raids on Morocco as part of the Rif War on April 27. The raids would continue intermittently for the next nine years.
Photo courtesy of Stony Brook University Athletics
The Stony Brook women’s track and field team returned to competition on March 29 for the Monmouth Season Opener in West Long Branch, New Jersey. The Seawolves posted several solid showings on the day, including six top-eight placements.
HIGHLIGHTS
Shaylen Goslar recorded a team-best second-place finish in the 800m (2:14.40).
Jasmine Mason-Rudolph took third in 400m (1:04.79).
Danielle Cirrito finished fifth in the 1500m (4:34.73).
Brienna Ahmetaj, Mason-Rudolph, Enyero Omokeni, and Camille Grable placed fifth in the 4x100m relay (49.66).
Omokeni finished sixth in the 400m event (58.40).
Grace Sisson placed seventh in the 1500m (4:40.17).
“It was a solid day at Monmouth Today,” head coach Andy Ronan said. “I feel a lot of the athletes are trying to adjust from the false environment of running indoors to having to deal with the elements of outdoor track. And they certainly got a taste of what outdoor conditions can be like. We had a very warm, windy day, and you could see athletes struggling to deal with both. The ladies seem to handle the conditions better than the guys, with good performances from Shaylen, Danielle, Grace, Enyero, and Jasmine leading the way.”
The team is back in action April 4 and 5, competing at the Colonial Relays in Williamsburg, Virginia. Both days of the meet are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.
Photo courtesy of Stony Brook University Athletics
The Stony Brook women’s lacrosse team continued their dominant display in conference play, defeating William & Mary 20-3 on March 30 at LaValle Stadium.
Charlotte Wilmoth led the Seawolves with five goals and one assist as Isabella Caporuscio, Riley McDonald, and Julia Fusco each tallied a hat trick for the Stony Brook squad. Braeden Siverson had a team and career-high 11 draw controls.
Defensively, Allie Masera and Alexa Constant each collected a team-high three ground balls and causing a pair of turnovers along with Avery Hines. In net, Natalia Altebrando made six saves on a .667 save percentage through the first three quarters, as Francesca Viteritti made one save in the fourth.
HOW IT HAPPENED
William & Mary struck first before a 5-0 scoring run for the Seawolves with a pair from McDonald, and one each for Wilmoth, J. Fusco, and Caporuscio. The Tribe would get another on the board as Stony Brook’s Olivia Schorr closed out the first quarter with her second of the season for a 6-2 lead.
The Seawolves dominated with another four goals to start the second quarter, and William and Mary responded with one of their own with only 70 second remaining in the half. Wilmoth found the back of the net one more time before time expired heading into the break.
Stony Brook continued to impress, scoring nine straight goals through the third and fourth quarters courtesy of Caporuscio, Wilmoth, Casey Colbert, Courtney Maclay, J. Fusco for a career-high, and Olivia Coffey for her first collegiate goal. The Seawolves were able to hold the Tribe scoreless through the final 30 minutes of play, with only three shots and secure a 3-0 start to CAA play.
QUOTES FROM THE SEAWOLVES
NEXT UP
The Seawolves are back in action on Friday, April 4 at 6 p.m. against Monmouth on Senior Day at LaValle Stadium. Stony Brook leads 6-0 all-time in a series dating back to 2007.
Photo courtesy of Stony Brook University Athletics
The Stony Brook baseball team grabbed an early lead in the fourth inning thanks to a powerful home run from Nico Azpilcueta, but the Huskies responded with a late surge to secure a 10-2 win at Joe Nathan Field on March 30.
John Rizzo took the mound for the Seawolves, starting strong with an out before Northeastern connected for a solo homer to take an early 1-0 lead.
Making his first start of the season, Nick Zampieron helped spark the offense with a one-out single, followed by a stolen base. Azpilcueta then came through in the clutch, ripping a double down the left-field line to even the score at 1-1.
Rizzo worked through some traffic in the second inning but ended the frame with a key pop-up, stranding two runners. The Seawolves went down in order in their half of the inning, keeping the game tied heading into the third.
Both teams settled in defensively, trading 1-2-3 innings in the third. Rizzo remained locked in, retiring the side to extend his streak to eight straight batters.
Azpilcueta continued his hot hitting, leading off the fourth with a towering home run over the left-field fence to give Stony Brook a 2-1 advantage. Rizzo followed with another dominant inning, retiring 11 straight batters.
Northeastern put together a big sixth inning, scoring five runs to take a 6-2 lead before adding four more in the seventh to close out the scoring. Despite the final result, Matthew Canizares was a bright spot for the Seawolves, delivering 2.2 strong innings out of the bullpen, allowing just one hit and no runs.
Up next, the team will look to bounce back on April 1 when they host Manhattan in a non-conference matchup. First pitch is set for 1 p.m., with live coverage available on FloCollege.
Photo courtesy of Stony Brook University Athletics
Stony Brook men’s lacrosse outlasted No. 12 Fairfield, 17-16, on March 29 at LaValle Stadium, handing the NCAA’s last remaining unbeaten team its first loss of the season. Kian McCoy paced the offense with a career-high six points (three goals, three assists) while Jamison MacLachlan made a season-best 20 saves in cage.
The high-scoring contest featured a 10-goal first half, seeing Stony Brook take an early 5-1 lead.
The Seawolves led 6-4 after the opening 15 minutes of action. Six different Seawolves scored a goal in the frame.
Fairfield trailed by four goals early on but scored three of the final four goals of the quarter to trim the deficit to two goals.
A five-goal scoring run that spanned the final three-plus minutes of the first quarter and the first six minutes of the second stanza gave Fairfield its first lead of the afternoon, 7-6.
Brendan Marino snapped Stony Brook’s nearly 15-minute scoring drought with his second of the afternoon to even the score at 7-7. McCoy followed with his second of the contest to put the Seawolves back in front.
The Stags tallied a pair of goals to back ahead by one before Richie DeChiaro scored in the final minute to even the contest at 9-all heading into the intermission.
The lead continued changing hands in the second half. McCoy completed his hat trick to break the ice in the second half and put Stony Brook in front 10-9.
Fairfield notched back-to-back goals to make it 11-10 in favor of the nationally-ranked visitors.
The two sides entered the fourth quarter all even at 13 after Tanner Williams found the back of the net to complete the scoring in the third quarter.
Carson Boyle netted a man-up goal and Collin Williamson padded the Seawolves lead to two goals with one of his own early in the fourth.
Fairfield responded with two more tallies to tie it again, 15-15. MacLachlan held strong in net, stopping a pair of Fairfield shots and keeping it even as the contest entered the final five minutes.
MacLachlan caused a turnover with less than three minutes to play, intercepting a pass to the X. Stony Brook gained possession, cleared and called timeout to set the offense.
Ray O’Brien scored the go-ahead goal, unassisted, sneaking a shot inside, with help from the post, with 2:17 to play.
Robbie Smith won the ensuing face-off, leading to a Caleb Yeung unassisted goal to push the lead to two goals with 1:06 to play.
Smith won the next face-off as well, but Fairfield forced a turnover and scored with 20 seconds to play.
After a Fairfield timeout, the Stags went early on the face-off, giving what proved to be the final possession of the contest to Stony Brook. The Seawolves ran the clock out on their second ranked win of the season, and first in league play.
“I’m so proud of the guys, they played so hard. These last four weeks, we’ve practiced so hard and we’re in these one-goal games. It comes down to play here or there, and we talked all week about finishing. We broke every huddle with ‘finish’ the entire week and every huddle in game today and our guys just made one more play and that was the key,” head coach Anthony Gilardi said postgame.
Up next, the team hits the road to face Delaware on Saturday, April 5. The Seawolves and Blue Hens are set for a noon start in Newark with the contest streaming live on FloCollege.
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