Opinion
June 12, 1990
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Harold J. Rothwax, J.).
On appeal from his convictions, which arise from sexual assaults on three different victims, which were committed on three different occasions in September and October 1987 in the same housing project on East 28th Street, defendant contends that the trial court, in its Sandoval ruling, abused its discretion in failing to limit the scope of cross-examination with respect to defendant's past crimes, and that the sentence imposed is excessive.
The similarity between the crimes charged and defendant's past convictions posed a special problem for the court, but the mere fact that defendant's prior convictions were, in the main, sex crimes, did not insulate him from cross-examination regarding them. (See, People v. Rahman, 62 A.D.2d 968, affd 46 N.Y.2d 882.) Further, there is nothing in the record that shows that the court did not undertake a proper balancing test. Defendant's prior felony convictions, two rapes, one sodomy, and one robbery, followed defendant's guilty plea that satisfied an indictment containing charges arising out of 14 separate sexual attacks. The court limited cross-examination to the nature of the convictions and to the sentence that was imposed, barring any examination of the underlying facts or circumstances. Accordingly, we find that the court's determination was a sound exercise of its discretion. (See, People v. Sandoval, 34 N.Y.2d 371, 374.) Likewise, the sentences imposed were entirely just. Defendant was convicted after trial of three most heinous crimes. Once he had been found guilty, the court was free to impose a sentence greater than the one offered to defendant by the prosecutor before trial. (See, People v. Pena, 50 N.Y.2d 400, 411-412.) We further note the trial court's expressed unwillingness to accept the plea bargain that had been offered to and rejected by defendant.
Concur — Kupferman, J.P., Sullivan, Asch, Wallach and Smith, JJ.