By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-01 13:37:26 | Updated at 2025-01-04 08:12:55
2 days ago
An apparently boozed-up luxury home designer crashed his silver Porsche into an oncoming car in the Hamptons on Christmas, cops say — and when asked how much he’d been drinking, allegedly replied, “Just today?’’
Porsche driver Edward Yedid — the well-heeled 46-year-old co-founder of the posh architecture and design company Grade New York — allegedly told the family in the other vehicle after the crash, “Sorry, my car just drives really fast.”
Yedid was allegedly speeding on a sleepy East Hampton road around 2:30 p.m. when he swerved into the oncoming traffic lane, according to police records obtained by The Post.
The married dad — dressed in “head-to-toe designer clothes’’ — smashed his 2021 Porsche Taycan 4S sports car into a 2016 black BMW SUV carrying a family of three on their way to the movies, say the police report and one of the passengers.
Arianna Thomas, 30, of East Hampton told The Post that she, her partner and dad were “casually driving” along Newtown Lane, headed to see the movie “Wicked,” when “this guy whips around [a corner] in his silver Porsche.
“We only had a second to react, and he just smashed into us,” Thomas said of Yedid — an author once featured along with his wife in a 2019 New York Times article about an Upper East Side fixer-upper they bought for $2.3 million.
Thomas said that if not for the quick reaction time of her dad, who was driving, things would have been much worse.
Her father swerved just in time so that the Porsche struck their car’s left front as opposed to head-on, according to Thomas and the police report.
The trio and Yedid were all treated at the hospital for minor injuries, according to the report and Thomas.
When Yedid got out of his car, “We could smell alcohol immediately,” Thomas claimed.
“He was wearing head-to-toe designer clothes when he got out of the car, eyes completely bloodshot,’’ the passenger alleged.
An arrest report said an officer at the scene noticed “the odor of an alcoholic beverage upon [Yedid’s] breath” and that he was “unsteady on his feet” and had “bloodshot glassy eyes.”
Yedid also “performed poorly on all standardized field tests,” and he “produced a breath sample” and “was subsequently placed under arrest,” the arrest report said. The document did not reveal his blood-alcohol-content level.
After the crash, Yedid told the family, “Sorry, my car just drives really fast,” Thomas claimed.
The designer also asked the trio if they were OK, she said.
“I told him not to speak to me,” Thomas said.
When an officer asked Yedid how much he had to drink, Thomas claimed that the driver responded: “Just today?”
Yedid was arrested and brought to Southampton hospital, where he was eventually released with the instruction to return to the police station Dec. 27 so cops could complete processing his arrest, the report said.
He was eventually charged with driving while intoxicated, failure to keep right, speed not reasonable and driving an uninspected car.
He was freed and must show up for arraignment in court Jan. 8, police records show.
Yedid did not return Post messages seeking comment Tuesday. It was unclear if he had a lawyer.
The designer and his business partner wrote a book in 2019 titled, “New York Contemporary: Grade Architecture and Interiors.’’
Yedid also is well-known enough around the uber-tony area to have garnered an interview titled, “Cool Hot Spots in the Hamptons: Edward Yedid’s favorite recommendations,’’ on the Web site for the upscale home-goods marketplace The Invisible Collection.
“Edward’s Favorites — Dinner at Le Bilboquet, Sag Harbor – elegant, on the water, wonderful food and service, feels like Europe and the ambiance is energetic,’’ the profile says.
Thomas said that as for her family, the accident “showed how quickly life could change.”
Thomas said she is bruised on her right knee, her partner has a cut on his nose and a bruise on his head and her dad has back pain.
“We were in the hospital for Christmas,’’ she lamented.
