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NBA star Jason Kidd, who recently signed with the New York Knicks, was arrested over the weekend in Water Mill and charged with drunken driving after Southampton Town Police said he smashed his SUV into a utility pole in Water Mill, shearing it in half and temporarily knocking out power to neighbors.
The high-profile basketball player was taken to Southampton Hospital for the treatment of minor injuries before being released and taken to police headquarters in Hampton Bays, where he was detained overnight, police said. He was the sole occupant of his gray 2010 Cadillac Escalade at the time of the crash on Sunday morning.
The 39-year-old Dallas resident, who has a home in Water Mill, was driving southwest near the intersection of Cobb and Little Cobb roads at 1:56 a.m., when he totaled his car, police said.
Mr. Kidd’s DWI arrest has attracted national attention because of his stature as a professional athlete, and it has turned even more media attention onto the Southampton Town Police Department, which is still investigating the fatal hit-and-run of a Roman Catholic nun in the same hamlet a week earlier. TV cameramen and newspaper reporters have almost become a fixture at the department’s headquarters in Hampton Bays.
Police Officer Melissa Elliston responded to a 911 call from a passerby and said she found Mr. Kidd in the driver’s seat of the SUV, and that he told her he was the driver. He “smelled heavily of an alcoholic beverage,” was very unsteady on his feet, and had bloodshot, watery eyes, the arrest report stated. The report also stated that Mr. Kidd did not know what happened to cause the accident.
Mr. Kidd was arrested at 2:42 a.m. on Sunday morning at the crash scene and charged with a misdemeanor count of DWI, as well as refusing to take a breath screening test, a violation. He also refused a chemical test at the hospital, police said.
He was released on his own recognizance following an arraignment at Southampton Town Justice Court later that morning and is due back in court on September 12 at 9 a.m.
His attorney, Edward Burke Jr., said little other than that he and his client had entered a not guilty plea. He declined to comment on published reports that his client had been partying at an area nightclub that evening. He referred further comment to Mr. Kidd’s spokesman, Scott Miranda. A call placed to Mr. Miranda’s Manhattan office was not immediately returned Wednesday morning.
Mr. Kidd, a point guard who has played for 18 years in the NBA, is a 10-time All-Star who won a championship in 2011 with the Dallas Mavericks. He signed with the Knicks on July 5. He also has won two gold medals with the U.S. Olympic basketball team.
His crash is the second DWI arrest resulting from a crash at the Cobb and Little Cobb roads intersection this summer. A Southampton man was charged with DWI at the same spot on July 2, after he struck a tree while talking on a cellphone and rolled over his SUV, police said. He, too, was taken to Southampton Hospital for the treatment of minor injuries.
