East Quogue Man Tortured, Murdered High School Friend, Prosecution Says at Arraignment on Charges

The 43-year-old East Quogue man accused of torturing and murdering an acquaintance he knew from high school in the early morning hours of September 28 was arraigned on three felony charges on Thursday, October 10, including murder in the first degree.

If convicted of the charges, Jeremy Allen, 43, faces a potential sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Allen was wearing green Suffolk County Jail-issued clothes and was brought into the courtroom by several officers. He had been held in a psychiatric ward at Long Island Community Hospital in Patchogue from the time of his initial arraignment in Southampton Town Justice Court on September 29, when he was ordered held without bail, and October 8, when he was moved back to county jail.

Allen also is charged with murder in the second degree and tampering with evidence.

As prosecuting attorney Elena Tomaro described six hours of torture that began a little after midnight and ended at 6 a.m. on September 28 with Allen stabbing Christopher Hahn 10 times in the head, members of the victim’s family who were seated in the courtroom began weeping.

Suffolk County Judge Timothy Mazzei looked out at the family members as the arraignment continued, appearing sympathetic to their anguish.

Tomaro said the men had spent the day drinking before returning to Allen’s home on Oakville Avenue. There, Tomaro said, Allen “began the brutal torture of Christopher Hahn.”

Allen initially attacked Hahn with a baseball bat, splattering blood on the walls, floor and ceiling. Allen then dragged “the semi-conscious Mr. Hahn” out onto his back deck. Parts of the assault, Tomaro said, were captured on Allen’s video home surveillance system.

For the next six hours, Tomaro said, Allen would intermittently beat Hahn, then sit back on a lawn chair on the deck and watch Hahn. The six hours of video included audio, Tomaro said.

At one point, Tomaro said, Allen stood over Hahn’s body and said, “Die. It’s not so hard. Just die.”

Allen then went inside the house, continuing to watch Hahn on a surveillance system monitor he had set up in his dining room. He had covered Hahn’s body with a plastic sheet.

After Hahn died, Tomaro said, Allen contacted a handyman, whom he had employed in the past, to help him clean up the blood stains throughout the house. The handyman arrived at 9 a.m. and asked Allen about the source of all the blood stains, Tomaro said.

“I pay you to clean and not ask any questions,” the prosecutor said was Allen’s reply.

At that point, the handyman noticed a tarp-covered lump on the back deck. Tomaro said that one of Allen’s Labrador retrievers then tugged on the tarp, revealing Hahn’s lifeless feet.

“You’ve seen too much. Now you can’t leave,” Tomaro said Allen told the handyman — who convinced Allen he needed to get bleach from his truck to clean up the blood. Instead, the handyman drove off and called the police, and Allen was soon under arrest.

Hahn had been released from county jail less than two weeks before he was murdered, according to county records, after serving nine months related to a 2020 conviction following an arrest on charges of attempted armed robbery and assault on a person over 65 years old.

It appears from county records that Hahn began serving his sentence in 2020 but was released due to the pandemic, only to be reincarcerated earlier this year.

Colin Astarita, Allen’s attorney, said that Hahn had begun texting Allen shortly after his release from county jail, and that Allen had initially avoided reuniting with Hahn, whom he had once been friendly with, telling Astarita that he was “bad news.”

But hours before the two men returned to Allen’s Oakville Avenue home, they set out in an Uber to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at a church in Manorville. However, they had the wrong address for the AA meeting, and instead ended up at a bar, where they began drinking.

Tomaro asked Mazzei to remand Allen, due to the seriousness of the charges, and Allen’s own criminal past.

Tomaro said that earlier this year, Allen was convicted of misdemeanor DWI in Ulster County, and was currently on probation. She said that Allen also has a prior DWI conviction in Suffolk County from 2009, as well as a 2007 plea-bargained driving with ability impaired by alcohol conviction, a violation reduced from misdemeanor DWI.

Currently, she said Allen has an open rape charge involving a girl under 15 years of age, and that after that arrest, he had gone to a Dick’s Sporting Goods store and attempted to buy a shotgun, which was prohibited under the terms of his release.

Astarita did not argue for Allen’s release but did ask Mazzei to consider ordering an examination to determine whether Allen is mentally competent to stand trial, saying that Allen suffers from mental illness and alcoholism.

Tomaro argued against such an examination, saying that there had been no indication that Allen was not mentally competent to stand trial.

That matter will likely be taken up during Allen’s next court date on November 14.

Astarita has represented Allen following his recent arrests. He said last week that, despite Allen’s persistent mental health issues, he has never known him to be a violent individual.