
Repeat DWI offender Charlotte DePersia of East Hampton on Tuesday admitted to violating her probation by drinking at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk in March and was sentenced to serve seven months and one week in the Suffolk County Jail DWI Alternative Facility in Riverhead.
Ms. Depersia, 59, of Toilsome Lane on Tuesday admitted to having violated her probation on March 10 by drinking two glasses of wine at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk before being sentenced by Criminal Court Justice William Condon.
According to Robert Clifford, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas J. Spota’s office, the goal of the facility, which is run by the Suffolk County Sheriff’s office in Riverhead, is to reduce recidivism rates of DWI and substance abuse offenders by providing intensive treatment services.
The D.A.’s office had recommended Ms. DePersia receive the maximum sentence of one and one-third to four years in state prison.
“We’re pleased that the judge rejected the district attorney’s four-year prison recommendation and we’re confident that once released in four months, she will be a productive member of society,” said William Petrillo, her attorney as of late May, in a phone interview on Tuesday.
Ms. DePersia was wearing an alcohol-detecting ankle bracelet called a Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor, or SCRAM, when she drank in Montauk. The device measured her blood alcohol content at 0.039 percent, a level consistent with the consumption of two glasses of wine, officials said. Her probation included a condition that she not consume any alcohol.
She had previously declined to admit that she was drinking on that day. Justice Condon had sentenced her to probation on December 13, 2011, after she pleaded guilty to felony DWI, vehicular assault, crossing the median and possession of an alcoholic beverage in a motor vehicle.
Ms. DePersia’s most recent DWI conviction was for an incident on November 27, 2010, while she was on probation for a 2009 DWI. She was arrested that night after she crossed the double-yellow line and crashed her Land Rover into another car on Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton, one that was carrying four people: Lindsay Soyka and Matthew Gluck, who split their time between East Quogue and Manhattan, and their friends Karyn and Mark Scholack. Ms. Scholack, who was pregnant at the time, suffered a broken rib, while Ms. Soyka broke her nose. Their husbands and the unborn baby were not injured in the accident.
Ms. DePersia has been arrested three times for driving under the influence of alcohol since 2003.
Jail will scare her, but not stop her from drinking. A longer stint in jail would give her more time to think about her situation and ...more her life in general. It did for someone I know, and changed the person's life after a string of DWIs. Four months is far too short. Shame on that judge.