On June 26, Robert Eccleston appeared before the Ocean Beach Village Justice Court in shackles and chains, escorted by Suffolk County Sheriffs to answer for an outstanding bench warrant dating back to 2010. Eccleston is among 13 people arrested in connection with the East Patchogue missing teen case, which kept Long Islanders along the Great South Bay riveted to news reports throughout the winter of 2024/25 as sordid details about her disappearance in December continued to unfold. She was found on January 3 in a boat moored at Islip Hamlet’s Whitecap Marina.
Eccleston, who was 61 at the time of his arrest, was the fourth person to be taken into custody in connection with the case, on January 24. He is accused of holding the 14-year-old girl captive in a detached garage behind his home on Monell Avenue in Islip for over three days and has been charged with multiple offenses over that period.
The bench warrant issued on May 25, 2015, came five years after Eccleston received a summons her received for illegal docking in Ocean Beach in 2010, but he never appeared in court to face the charge.
According to the court transcript provided by the Village Justice Court, the Village Prosecutor told the Honorable William Wexler that the defendant agreed to plead guilty to the illegal docking charge. Wexler recalled the warrant with time served. Eccleston was then was then escorted back to the Suffolk County facility to await his upcoming trial.
While Eccleston was a boater, his was not the vessel in Whitecap Marina in which the girl was found. That is Francis Buckheit of East Islip, who is also in custody awaiting trial. Both men have pleaded not guilty to their respective charges.
A criminal charge is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
