Opinion
90155
January 17, 2002.
Proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78 (transferred to this Court by order of the Supreme Court, entered in Albany County) to review a determination of respondent which found petitioner guilty of violating a prison disciplinary rule.
Miguel Morales, Malone, petitioner pro se.
Eliot Spitzer, Attorney-General (Wayne L. Benjamin of counsel), Albany, for respondent.
Before: Cardona, P.J., Crew III, Carpinello, Mugglin and, Rose, JJ.
MEMORANDUM AND JUDGMENT
Petitioner was found guilty of violating the prison disciplinary rule prohibiting the unauthorized transfer of items between inmates and visitors. According to the misbehavior report, petitioner was in the visiting room of the special housing unit, playing cards and conversing with his wife, when he was observed taking something from her which he put down the front of his pants. Suspecting that petitioner had secreted the transferred object in his rectum, correction officers strip-searched petitioner and then confined him in an observation cell for 48 hours. No contraband was found.
At the disciplinary hearing that followed, substantial evidence of petitioner's guilt of the charged misconduct was presented in the form of the misbehavior report and the surveillance videotape which shows petitioner taking an object from a female visitor and placing it down his pants (see, Matter of Serrano v. Goord, 266 A.D.2d 661, lv denied 94 N.Y.2d 762; Matter of Rodriguez v. Senkowski, 202 A.D.2d 761). Petitioner's testimony, in which he explained that he had only reached into his pants to "rearrange" himself after becoming sexually aroused, raised an issue of credibility for resolution by the Hearing Officer (see, Matter of Alejandro v. Goord, 278 A.D.2d 731; Matter of Garcia v. Goord, 261 A.D.2d 674, lv dismissed 94 N.Y.2d 834). The remaining contentions raised herein have been examined and found to be without merit.
Cardona, P.J., Crew III, Carpinello, Mugglin and Rose, JJ., concur.
ADJUDGED that the determination is confirmed, without costs, and petition dismissed.