A luxury home designer’s holiday joyride turned into a Christmas nightmare when he allegedly drove his Porsche into an oncoming car in the Hamptons. Edward Yedid, the 46-year-old co-founder of Grade New York, a high-end architecture and design firm, is accused of driving under the influence and causing the crash that injured a family of three on their way to see a holiday movie.
The incident occurred around 2:30 p.m. on Christmas Day in East Hampton. Yedid, driving a 2021 Porsche Taycan 4S, reportedly swerved into the opposite lane and struck a 2016 BMW SUV. Inside the SUV were Arianna Thomas, her partner, and her father, who narrowly avoided a head-on collision by swerving at the last second.
“We only had a second to react, and he just smashed into us,” Thomas recounted. She credited her father’s quick reflexes with preventing a far worse outcome.
When Yedid exited his car, witnesses described him as visibly intoxicated. “He was wearing head-to-toe designer clothes, his eyes were bloodshot, and you could smell alcohol immediately,” Thomas said.
According to the police report, Yedid was “unsteady on his feet” and performed poorly on field sobriety tests. When asked by officers how much he had been drinking, he allegedly replied, “Just today?”
After the crash, Yedid reportedly apologized to the family, saying, “Sorry, my car just drives really fast.” The family sustained minor injuries, with Thomas bruising her knee, her partner suffering a cut on his nose and a bruise on his head, and her father experiencing back pain.
Yedid was arrested at the scene and later released from Southampton Hospital with instructions to return for further processing. He faces charges of driving while intoxicated, failure to keep right, and driving an uninspected vehicle. His court arraignment is set for January 8.
The crash has left Thomas and her family shaken. “We were in the hospital for Christmas,” she lamented. “It showed how quickly life could change.”
Yedid, known for his work in luxury home design and his prominent presence in Hamptons social circles, has yet to comment on the incident.