Opinion
May 30, 1995
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Jones, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
The defendant contends that the police unlawfully arrested him in his apartment without a warrant in violation of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Payton v New York ( 445 U.S. 573), and that this violation required the suppression of the subsequent lineup and in-court identifications of him by the complainants. The hearing court determined that no Payton violation occurred because the police officers' entry into the defendant's apartment was consensual. We decline to disturb that determination as it is supported by the record (see, People v Prochilo, 41 N.Y.2d 759; see also, People v Leidinger, 196 A.D.2d 688; People v Riley, 95 A.D.2d 926).
Even assuming that a Payton violation occurred, the lineup identifications were admissible because they were sufficiently attenuated from the arrest (see, People v Conyers, 68 N.Y.2d 982; People v Rogers, 52 N.Y.2d 527, cert denied 454 U.S. 898). The police initially arrested the defendant's accomplice who identified the defendant from a book of photographs and implicated him in the robbery. Based on the information provided by the accomplice, a photographic array was presented to the two complainants and they identified the defendant. The defendant was subsequently arrested and the complainants identified him in a lineup several hours later. The lineup identifications therefore were not the product of the allegedly illegal arrest (see, e.g., People v Watson, 200 A.D.2d 643; People v O'Brien, 178 A.D.2d 617; People v Wilson, 131 A.D.2d 526).
Moreover, the alleged Payton violation would not preclude the in-court identifications of the defendant by the complainants as the record supports the hearing court's determination that the identifications were based on the independent recollections of the complainants (see, People v Pleasant, 54 N.Y.2d 972, cert denied 455 U.S. 924; United States v Crews, 445 U.S. 463).
The defendant's remaining contentions are either unpreserved for appellate review or without merit. Balletta, J.P., O'Brien, Thompson and Hart, JJ., concur.