Cops: DWI wrong-way driver in Bohemia

A Sayville man faces a battery of charges after police said he drove the wrong way while intoxicated and crashed his car near Sunrise Highway in Bohemia.

Scott Coutts, 40, is at least the 18th person arrested and accused of drunken driving and traveling in the wrong direction since mid-November, when police said an off-duty New York City police officer was killed after being hit by an accused wrong-way drunken driver on the Northern State Parkway in Dix Hills.

Coutts, of Manton Street, was driving south on Oakdale-Bohemia Road when he turned eastbound into the westbound lanes of the Sunrise Highway service road at about 6:20 p.m. on Saturday, police said.

Coutts struck a sport utility vehicle that was stopped at a red light, police said. He continued eastbound in the wrong lane for a short distance before he turned around and started going the right way, police said.

Coutts "then struck a 2007 Ford F150 and continued westbound on the service road before he struck a snow bank near the Pond Road intersection in Bohemia and was stopped," police said in a statement.

No one was seriously injured, police said.

Coutts was charged with aggravated driving while intoxicated, leaving the scene of an accident and first-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, police said. Coutts was also issued numerous vehicle and traffic summonses, police said.

Coutts was held overnight and was scheduled to be arraigned Sunday in District Court in Central Islip, police said. Arraignment information couldn't be immediately obtained.

In a case involving another accused wrong-way driver, Jacqueline Vaughan-Moscatiello, 46, of Mastic, was released from Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue for injuries she sustained in a Jan. 13 crash.

Vaughan-Moscatiello, 46, who pleaded guilty in a June wrong-way driving incident, was driving near Station Road and Montauk Highway in Bellport on Thursday when she hit a car and fled, police have said. She was charged with felony drunk driving, aggravated unlicensed operation and leaving the scene of an accident on Thursday.

The driver of the vehicle Vaughan-Moscatiello hit was treated for minor injuries at the time.

Court officials did not return a call Sunday seeking arraignment information. A family member reached by phone at Vaughan-Moscatiello's home said Vaughan-Moscatiello was "not available" and declined to comment further.