MTV party turns uglyBust 4 in Hamptons melee
By TRACY CONNOR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
The MTV house in Hampton Bays.
A group of hip-hop fans invited to hang out at MTV's beach house in the Hamptons was jolted back to the real world - busted for a wild melee at a nearby club. Four young men were arraigned yesterday in Southampton Town Court on charges ranging from assault to robbery for the Tuesday afternoon brawl at Summers Beach Club.
One person was badly hurt in the fracas, and it took cops from three different departments to restore order at the popular party spot in East Quogue.
"There were 100 to 120 people involved in various fights," said Detective Sgt. Randolph Hintze of the Southampton Town Police. He described the atmosphere as "very tense" and said that had cops not arrived so quickly, things could have exploded.
"It really got out of control," said Kareem Sharpe, 19, one of the men arrested. "It started with a lot of drinking, then play-fighting and it went from there."
The clash happened after MTV bused dozens of its viewers from the Smithhaven Mall in Lake Grove to its beach house on Dune Road in East Quogue. They were recruited to be audience members for the "Direct Effect" show, a daily countdown of hip-hop video requests.
Fists fly
Some recruits apparently didn't want their MTV, and headed down the road to Summers Beach Club, a waterfront watering hole crowded with regulars. The MTV crowd became "aggressive and confrontational" with Summers staff and customers and the "combative atmosphere" sparked a series of fistfights, police said.
Southampton cops rushed to the scene and called in backup from the Quogue Village police and state police. In the chaos, one bloodied victim just wandered away, and cops were only able to identify four suspects, Hintze said.
Sharpe, a stock clerk from Brentwood, said he wasn't even at Summers. He was heading back to the bus at the end of the taping when trouble started. "I saw everyone running and then I saw a black kid get hit on the head with a bottle and he fell and everyone was kicking him," he said.
Out on bail
Sharpe said he stepped in and got into a confrontation with a man who turned out to be an off-duty cop trying to break up the free-for-all. "I hit him. I didn't even know he was a police officer," said Sharpe, who was charged with assault and released on $250 bail.
David Callender, 24, of Farmingville, also was accused of assaulting the off-duty cop and stealing from a tip jar.
Pandelis Theodosiou, 21, of Port Jefferson allegedly swiped a bottle of rum and threatened the club owner. Police said he fled and hid on one of the buses when cops tried to arrest him.
The fourth person arrested was Greg Romine, 22, of South Setauket, for interfering with another arrest. After he was busted, police found he had a warrant for an unpaid fine.
A 24-year-old man, whose name was not released, was treated at Central Suffolk Hospital for cuts and bruises on the head, officials said.
In a statement, MTV said only that it was cooperating with the investigation. The club did not return phone calls.
Originally published on June 26, 2003
Hmmm. Could anyone injured sue MTV? Surely there are some upstanding members of the legal profession who might take such a case on a contingency-fee basis.