Kabot Arrested

By Dan Rattiner

Southampton Town Supervisor Linda Kabot was arrested for drunk driving in Westhampton Beach at 12:15 a.m. Monday morning of the Labor Day weekend.

Westhampton Beach police noticed a 2006 Toyota crossing a double line to make a left turn onto Main Street at that hour. Pulling the car over, they found, according to the police report, 41-year-old Kabot, of Quogue, who had "eyes red and glassy and breath that smelled like alcohol" and who then failed all sobriety tests administered. One, a breathalyzer test, she refused to take.

It is unclear whether she spent the rest of the night in the Village lockup, but in any case, she was arraigned later that morning, at 9:15 a.m., in the courtroom of Judge Robert Kelly Jr. and then released in her own recognizance. Her license was suspended for refusing to take a chemical test. She will be back in court on September 30, represented by James McManmon of Riverhead. She has ignored all attempts to contact her except to release a note asking people to protect her privacy and withhold judgment until she has had her day in court.

In 2007, after serving two terms on the Southampton Town Board, Kabot, a Republican, defeated the incumbent Patrick "Skip" Heaney. It had been a four-way race.

This past May, however, after just a year and a half on the job, Kabot, the sitting incumbent, was nevertheless dumped from the Republican slate. A few months later, though, she was reinstated after working a deal to put former rival and town Conservative Party Chairman James Malone on the ticket. Her major opponent in November will be Anna Throne-Holst, a Town Board member who has been nominated for supervisor by the Democrats. She has also secured endorsements from two other political parties.

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