Police say they used DNA to find a burglar who broke into a house a few months ago and assaulted the homeowner who found him.
The burglary occurred on Oct. 3, when the suspect entered a Huntington Station home around 7:40 p.m., according to the Suffolk County Police Department. After the owner discovered the intruder, police said, there was a struggle and the burglar told the victim he had a handgun. The burglar fled the scene afterward.
Police said detectives from the 2nd Squad recovered DNA evidence that was linked to 59-year-old Scott Lundquist of Huntington Station.
Lundquist was arrested on Friday afternoon and charged with first-degree burglary, third-degree assault and resisting arrest.
The defendant was listed as representing himself on the state court system’s database and could not be reached for comment.
Police have made a third arrest in connection with the several businesses and vehicles damaged in Huntington early on Thanksgiving.
The suspects allegedly targeted eight local businesses and five cars that day. According to the Suffolk County Police Department, officers from the 2nd Precinct Crime Section canvassed the area, reviewed video surveillance and followed up on anonymous tips to identify and get to the trio.
Four businesses on the small stretch of Stewart Avenue were listed as victims of the vandals, including a furniture store, Gold Coast Lobsters, an x-ray supply company and an unnamed building that was under construction. Police also listed the Italian restaurant Bravo! Nader just down the street, on Union Place, as well as a telecommunications company on that same block. According to police, the nearby Stop & Shop on Wall Street and the Value Drugs on New York Avenue, across Route 25A from the other seven locations, were also hit.
William Strein mugshot from SCPD
The first suspect, 18-year-old Huntington resident Francesco Volpe, was arrested on Dec. 19 and charged with three counts of criminal mischief and three of making graffiti. About a month later, police arrested 21-year-old William Strein, of East Northport, and charged him with six counts of each of those offenses.
Police announced on Friday that officers had arrested the third suspect, 27-year-old Queens resident Drake Mandrell, the day before. Like Strein, he was charged with six counts each of criminal mischief and making graffiti.
Attorney information for the three was not immediately available. According to police, they will be arraigned at a later date.
Police asked that anyone with information about these incidents or similar ones called the Crime Section at 631-854-8226 or call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 800-220-TIPS.
A North Shore lawmaker and former Suffolk County detective has his sights set on the Suffolk County Police Department.
County Legislator Rob Trotta (R-Fort Salonga) took to the Legislature this week to introduce a procedural motion that would establish a special committee to watch over the county’s law enforcement operations. If enacted, the committee would investigate and oversee different aspects of the county police department, the legislator said.
Trotta has been an outspoken critic of the police department, recently calling for the demotion of former police chief, James Burke, after his resignation amid being charged with civil rights violations and obstructing an investigation. In a statement, Trotta said there was enough evidence to support his proposed need for a committee overseeing operations of the department.
“As a result of the recent allegations of wrongdoings by top officials in the Suffolk County Police Department and other law enforcement agencies, I felt compelled to sponsor this measure to review all aspects of law enforcement operations in Suffolk County,” Trotta said.
The lawmaker said the special committee would be comprised of six members of the Legislature who would be tasked with reviewing the operations, procedures and practices of the entire police department as well as the district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office. The committee would also investigate allegations of favoritism, the lack of adequate rules and procedures and the failure to comply with laws already on the books relating to internal affairs investigations in the police department, Trotta said.
The Suffolk County Police Department did not respond to requests seeking comment.
“As a retired Suffolk County detective who was assigned to the FBI’s Long Island task force for 10 years and now as a legislator, I feel it is incumbent upon me to try to rectify the situation created by a few bad apples in various departments,” Trotta said.
The county Legislature scheduled a review of the procedural motion at its public safety committee meeting today, Feb. 4, at 9:30 a.m. If put into effect, the committee would be empowered to administer oaths and affirmations, and to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of books and papers related to the review and investigation. It will have subpoena power with approval of the Legislature and will hold meetings and hearings as needed. In addition, the committee is authorized to hire the necessary staff to conduct its investigation, subject to appropriations by the Legislature, according to Trotta’s statement.
Two men were killed and one was seriously injured in the early hours of Tuesday morning, after police say one of them lost control of his car and slammed into a tree.
The Suffolk County Police Department said 26-year-old Hauppauge resident Leland Acampora crashed the Hyundai Sonata at about 4:30 a.m. while heading west on Fort Salonga Road near Makamah Road.
Both he and 26-year-old Commack resident Woody Zalman, who had been sitting in the back seat, were pronounced dead at the scene, police said. However, front seat passenger Paul Weingart, a 26-year-old from East Northport, was in serious condition at Stony Brook University Hospital, after being airlifted there by police helicopter.
Police impounded the Hyundai for a safety check.
Detectives from the SCPD’s 2nd Squad are investigating the single-car crash. Anyone with information is asked to call them at 631-854-8252.
Police say they seized drugs and cash from a Coram home last week. Photo from SCPD
Police will execute more search warrants and make more arrests at known hotspots for drug activity under a new initiative officials announced over the weekend.
The same day police arrested a father and son and seized more than a kilogram of drugs from the father’s home, the Suffolk County Police Department said it is focusing more on shutting down houses in residential areas where drug activity is suspected to be taking place.
That father-son pair was nabbed on Jan. 29, police said, after investigators executed a search warrant on a Coram home and found 730 grams of cocaine, 318 grams of heroin, 36 grams of oxycodone and $200,000 in cash. It was just the most recent in a string of busts through the initiative, which uses detectives from the Special Operations Team “to work with residents to obtain information on who is dealing and where,” according to an SCPD statement. “Armed with that information, detectives will be executing more search warrants of drug houses and making felony arrests at those locations.”
The effort is “fueled in part by residents’ complaints,” the SCPD said in the recent press release.
Police officials at a Jan. 26 civic meeting at the Comsewogue Public Library in Port Jefferson Station had reported raids at three local drug houses in the week leading up to the meeting, two in Gordon Heights and one in Centereach. At the latter location, 6th Precinct Inspector Bill Murphy said, cops busted a repeat offender and caught him with 4 ounces of cocaine and 2 ounces of heroin.
Police say they seized drugs and cash from a Coram home last week. Photo from SCPD
“He’s going away for a long time,” Murphy said.
In the police department’s announcement of its new initiative, it said investigators had executed nine search warrants in the several weeks since the effort started, seizing thousands of grams of drugs — including crack cocaine and heroin — as well as seven guns, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and drug paraphernalia.
“This new narcotics initiative will target residences where drug dealing is occurring,” Acting Police Commissioner Tim Sini said in a statement. “Drug houses in our neighborhoods degrade our sense of community, public safety and quality of life.”
In the Jan. 29 bust, 40-year-old Joseph Fearon, who police said lived at the Avalon Pines Drive home, was charged with two counts of first-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, four counts of third-degree criminal possession and two counts of second-degree criminal use of drug paraphernalia.
Fearon’s attorney, Central Islip-based Glenn Obedin, did not return a call seeking a comment on his client.
The defendant’s son, 23-year-old Jasheme Fearon, a Middle Island resident, was charged with fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and second-degree criminal impersonation. Police also said that he was arrested on a New York State parole warrant and a bench warrant.
Attorney information for the younger Fearon was not available.
Drug activity can create spikes in other types of crimes. At the civic meeting last week in the Comsewogue library, Murphy said overall crime has dropped in his precinct but heroin arrests have doubled in the last five years — from 148 in 2011 to 298 last year — and the addicts are behind many of the area’s burglaries and robberies.
“Unfortunately, a lot of the serious crimes we have are driven by drug abuse: [The perpetrators are] addicted to heroin and they’re so addicted to it, they have to get money to go and buy these drugs,” he said.
He and Officer Will Gibaldi invited Port Jefferson Station and Terryville residents at the civic meeting, including some who expressed their frustrations and fears relating to local drug activity, to reach out to them if they have a problem in their neighborhoods.
“If you contact me with a problem, you will get a response,” the inspector said. “You will not be ignored.”
The police’s new drug-house initiative is likewise geared toward responding to community members’ concerns.
“Working together with our law enforcement partners and sharing information is imperative to getting dangerous drugs off our streets and out of our communities,” Legislator Sarah Anker said in a statement about the crackdown on community drug dealing. “If you see something, say something.”
A man previously convicted of a sexual offense against a minor was arrested on Thursday after allegedly being caught undressed inside a vehicle with a 14-year-old boy.
According to the Suffolk County Police Department, an officer was on routine patrol when he spotted the car in a dark area of the parking lot of the Fort Salonga Shopping Center on Route 25A, near Bread and Cheese Hollow Road, shortly after midnight.
Police said the 4th Precinct officer, Dennis Lynch, approached and saw two people inside with their clothes off: registered sex offender and vehicle owner Kieran Bunce, 48, and a 14-year-old boy.
The pair had arranged their meeting over a cell phone application, police said, and sexual contact did occur.
Bunce is a registered Level 1 offender. According to the database of Parents for Megan’s Law, a nonprofit advocacy and victim support group that monitors sex offenders, Bunce was previously convicted on a 2003 sexual misconduct charge stemming from an incident with a 16-year-old girl.
That charge, a Class A misdemeanor, is a crime of sexual intercourse with someone without their consent, whether it is because the victim is a minor, mentally incapacitated or forced, according to state penal law.
According to the Parents for Megan’s Law database, Bunce was sentenced to six years of probation for that 2003 offense.
The Melville resident was charged with two felony counts of second-degree criminal sex act, as well as the misdemeanor first-degree endangering the welfare of a child.
Attorney information for Bunce was not immediately available. He was scheduled to be arraigned on Friday.
Drug busts are becoming more common in Suffolk County. Above, drugs and other items seized during one such bust. File photo
Overall crime is dropping in the 6th Precinct — but one wouldn’t know that by looking at the number of drug arrests.
Fewer crimes are being reported across the board while heroin arrests have doubled in the last five years, according to Suffolk County Police Department statistics shared at a joint meeting Tuesday night of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association and Comsewogue Community Crime Awareness Committee. Inspector Bill Murphy, the head of the precinct, said those arrests numbered 148 in 2011 but ballooned to 298 last year.
“And that’s just our arrests,” he said, noting that it doesn’t account for all heroin use. “Those are times that we come across it.”
Comsewogue area residents and visitors from neighboring civic associations vented their frustrations about local drug-related crimes and activity at the meeting in the Comsewogue Public Library on Terryville Road as they received the most recent data about police action on the issue. Despite the overall drop in crime, Murphy said drug addicts are still behind many of the reported incidents in the 6th Precinct.
“Unfortunately, a lot of the serious crimes we have are driven by drug abuse: The people addicted to heroin and they’re so addicted to it, they have to get money to go and buy these drugs,” he said. “They’re doing stickups, they’re doing burglaries.”
The police are cracking down on the drug trade, however. Murphy noted that officers had executed search warrants on three “drug houses” in the past week alone. One of them was in Centereach, where he said cops busted a repeat offender and caught him with 4 ounces of cocaine and 2 ounces of heroin.
“He’s going away for a long time,” Murphy said.
But the police activity is not limited to arrests. Officers also attack local drug addiction when they save people from opioid overdoses using Narcan, a medication they carry that stops overdoses of drugs like heroin, Vicodin, OxyContin, Demerol and Percocet.
Officer Will Gibaldi said at the meeting that in the past four weeks alone, they responded to three overdoses in Port Jefferson and one in Port Jefferson Station.
“We do handle a decent amount of them,” the officer said.
Police have been relying on Narcan so much in the few years since they first got access to medication that the department has stopped keeping track of how many lives officers have saved with the overdose antidote.
“We actually stopped giving statistics on it,” Murphy said. “After we broke the ‘500’ mark, there were just so many of them, it was senseless to even bother keeping numbers.”
For residents who are concerned about drug activity in their neighborhoods or want to report it to the police, Gibaldi emphasized that communication with the public is a department priority, saying, “Our door is always open.”
Likewise, Murphy invited people to reach out to him.
“If you contact me with a problem, you will get a response. You will not be ignored.”
Grave markers and headstones at the Lake Ronkonkoma Cemetery have been desecrated. Photo from SCPD
Historical grave markers and headstones were damaged earlier this month and police are searching for whomever is responsible.
Grave markers and headstones at the Lake Ronkonkoma Cemetery have been desecrated. Photo from SCPD
The desecrated graves were at Lake Ronkonkoma Cemetery on Hawkins Avenue, according to the Suffolk County Police Department, and include some grave stones dating back to the Civil War.
Police said Tuesday that the suspect or suspects did the damage between Jan. 4 and 8, desecrating 14 grave makers and headstones.
Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and detectives from the SCPD’s 4th Squad are looking for the public’s help to identify and locate the cemetery vandals. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 800-220-TIPS.
Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest.
The cemetery is located at the corner of Hawkins Avenue and Smith Street in Lake Ronkonkoma, behind the United Methodist Church.
A man arrested yesterday allegedly burglarized a bagel store and then biked away from the scene of the crime.
The Suffolk County Police Department said the man burgled Mayfair Bagels on Jericho Turnpike in Commack at about 4:45 a.m. on Monday before fleeing on a bicycle. Officers from the 4th Precinct responded to an alarm at the bagel business and found their suspect in the area shortly afterward.
Police arrested a Lake Ronkonkoma resident, Mathew McCauley, in connected with the incident. The 51-year-old was charged with third-degree burglary, as well as a parole violation.
Attorney information for McCauley was not immediately available. He was scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday.
According to police, detectives are investigating whether the suspect could have been involved in other recent burglaries in Commack.
A man and a woman approached two different tellers at the same time during a bank robbery on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Suffolk County Police Department.
At the Roslyn Savings Bank on Jericho Turnpike in Huntington Station, the pair entered at 1:40 p.m. and each approached a different employee, handing them notes demanding cash, police said. Those tellers complied and the suspects fled on foot with their loot, going north on Longfellow Drive.
Police described both suspects as black, the man between 20 and 25 years old and the woman 30 to 35 years old. The man was 5 feet 8 to 5 feet 10 inches tall, with a medium build, and was wearing a ski hat, a scarf, a gray hoodie and white pants. The woman, who was heavyset, was between 5 feet and 5 feet 3 inches tall, and was wearing a ski hat, a gray hoodie and earmuffs covering the bottom half of her face.
Pattern Crime Unit detectives are investigating the robbery. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-220-TIPS.
Prev
