Justin Timberlake’s arrest causes a stir in the Hamptons

On Tuesday afternoon, Janice Yu of WABC-TV in Sag Harbor sat in the passenger seat of a Nissan news van, eating a bag of Smart Food popcorn. This was as close as she got to a news story.

“We don’t even know who he was with,” she said, referring to singer and actor Justin Timberlake, who was arrested by a Sag Harbor police officer shortly after midnight on Tuesday and charged with drunken driving.

Ms. Yu, a reporter for ABC7 Eyewitness News in New York, was one of many journalists parked along Main Street near the American Hotel, a 19th-century inn where waiters serve Gardiners Bay littleneck mussels and Long Island duckling confit to the sultans of the baby boomer generation, where Mr. Timberlake had also celebrated with friends the night before.

Now it was a muggy and sunny day on the tree-lined street of this quaint by Hamptons standards former whaling village, lined with shops selling everything from $30 Havaianas flip-flops to $4,600 Charlotte Perriand swivel chairs. People in Lululemon athletic wear strolled by, holding açaí bowls and iced drinks.

Ms. Yu, who joined the local news team in 2022 after a stint at Fox5 in Atlanta, wore a turquoise and green dress by J. Crew. John Sprei, her field producer, sat behind her in the van in shorts and a T-shirt.

They had snatched a copy of the police report filed earlier in the day in Sag Harbor Village Court – but so had the journalists in the other vehicles lining the block. The convoy included news vans and vans from CBS, NBC, PIX11, Entertainment Tonight, The Associated Press and CNN.

The police report says Mr. Timberlake was driving a gray 2025 BMW after spending time at the American Hotel. It also says he had barely made it a few blocks when he ran a stop sign at the corner of Madison Street and Jermain, a tree-lined block where the houses don’t look like mansions.

He refused to take a breathalyzer test three times. “I drank a martini and followed my friends home,” he told the arresting officer, according to the report. Mr. Timberlake “performed poorly” on several sobriety tests, the report said.

He was arrested and taken to the police station just behind the American Hotel on Division Street, where he handed over his wedding ring, phone, baseball cap, watch, wallet, a vape pen and green and blue papers like those used to roll marijuana, according to the police report. (In 2011, the singer told Playboy he liked cannabis because it helped him “stop thinking”).

Soon after, several news crews arrived in Sag Harbor. At about 9:30 a.m., nearly nine hours after his arrest by police, Mr. Timberlake left the station in handcuffs. Tabloid photographers photographed him looking dejected after his overnight stay. He headed to Sag Harbor Village Justice Court on Main Street, less than 500 feet from the American Hotel, to face arraignment.

He had hired Edward D. Burke Jr., a former Suffolk County prosecutor who has set up a small office across the street from the American Hotel and has become the Hamptons’ preferred criminal defense attorney. Mr. Timberlake, who is scheduled to play two shows at Madison Square Garden next week, pleaded not guilty to driving while intoxicated. A court date has been set for July 26.

While Ms. Yu was filming her last report for the day, a CNN reporter stood outside the police station, which had closed at 4 p.m.

“I need the mug shot,” he shouted to an officer in a nearby patrol car.

“You have to call the press office,” the officer shouted back.

Although the camera crews made the American Hotel look like a crime scene, all of the outdoor tables were occupied.

“It’s not a nuisance,” said Theresa D’Andria, a Southampton resident who was slurping oysters there with her husband. “The weather is great.”

A few tables away, Stuart Levine, former CEO of Dale Carnegie & Associates, shared $45 crab cakes with his wife, Harriet Levine.

“You won’t get your Pulitzer Prize for this,” he told a reporter.

He added that he did not want to sound self-righteous (in fact, he did not), but that he felt the quality of the reporting was somewhat exaggerated considering that Mr Timberlake had not been in an accident.

“It’s like a happening,” he said.

Hamptons resident Vanessa Gordon was walking down the street approaching the WABC-TV news van with her 6-year-old son, Ben Gordon, wearing the combat gear he had worn to his jujitsu class at Epic Martial Arts on Main Street.

Ms. Gordon asked Mr. Sprei and Ms. Yu if their son could hold the microphone and pretend to deliver a news report. Mr. Sprei asked him to come forward and he did.

Andrew and Lauren Finkelstein, the parents of one of Ben’s jujitsu buddies, approached him shortly afterwards and asked if their son Max could join in the fun.

“We should charge admission,” said Mr Sprei.

As six-year-old Max Finkelstein clutched the microphone, his father asked him what he wanted to report on. He didn’t seem to have an answer, so his father gave him a headline inspired by one of Mr. Timberlake’s hits.

“Cry all you want!” shouted Mr. Finkelstein.