Court: Jamesport man who injured cop in crash pleads guilty
The Jamesport man who injured a Riverhead Town police officer when he crashed head-on into the officer’s police cruiser during a chase last December pleaded guilty to the charges against him Monday, according to court records.
Edward Ferger, 46, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault with intention to cause injury to a police officer, second-degree vehicular assault, reckless driving, operation of a motor vehicle while impaired by drugs and other traffic offenses, according to the records.
Mr. Ferger was driving a white cargo van while high on drugs Dec. 14 when he was stopped on Herricks Lane in Jamesport after a report of a suspicious vehicle in the area, Riverhead police said. Mr. Ferger fled north on Herricks Lane and then west on Sound Avenue.
Officer Charles Schneider, who has been with the department since June 2010, was responding to assist the officer who was pursuing Mr. Ferger. Officer Schneider was traveling east on Sound Avenue when Mr. Ferger drifted into his lane and struck him head-on just before 11 p.m., police chief David Hegermiller said at the time of the incident.
Mr. Schneider was airlifted to Stony Brook University Medical Center with a broken bone in his leg and lacerations, and was placed on medical leave.
He was honored in January as Officer of the Year for a separate incident that occurred months before the crash, when Officer Schneider used a belt to make a tourniquet and saved a man whose artery in his left arm had ruptured and burst.
Mr. Ferger was not seriously injured in the December crash.
He had also been arrested in June 2011 after allegedly throwing drugs out the window of the same white van and ended up on the lawn at the George G. Young community center in Jamesport, town officials said. The van was impounded.
Mr. Ferger remains held on $100,000 cash or $25,000 bond bail and will be sentenced on Sept. 10.
