Opinion
No. 570802/17
02-21-2023
The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Kevin Mordle, Defendant-Appellant.
Unpublished Opinion
Defendant appeals from a judgment of the Criminal Court of the City of New York, Bronx County (Elizabeth N. Warin, J. at plea, Myrna Socorro, J. at sentencing), rendered August 16, 2017, convicting him, upon a plea of guilty, of aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the third degree, and imposing sentence.
PRESENT: Hagler, P.J., Tisch, James, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Judgment of conviction (Elizabeth N. Warin, J. at plea, Myrna Socorro, J. at sentencing), rendered August 16, 2017, affirmed.
Since defendant waived the right to be prosecuted by information, the facial sufficiency of the accusatory instrument must be assessed under the standard required of a misdemeanor complaint (see People v Dumay, 23 N.Y.3d 518 [2014]). So viewed, the accusatory instrument was not jurisdictionally defective because it described facts of an evidentiary nature establishing reasonable cause to believe that defendant was guilty of third-degree aggravated unlicensed driving (see Vehicle and Traffic Law § 511[1][a]). The instrument, including the certified abstract of defendant's driving record, recited that a computer check run by the officer of the records of the Department of Motor Vehicles showed that defendant's driver's license had been suspended "on at least one separate date for failure to answer, appear or pay a fine"; that "defendant's license was suspended for failure to answer a traffic summons"; and that all such summonses have printed on them "'[i]f you do not answer this ticket by mail within fifteen days, your license will be suspended' [and that] the suspension occurs automatically (by computer) within four weeks of the defendant's failure to answer." These factual allegations were sufficient for pleading purposes to establish reasonable cause to believe that defendant knew, or had reason to know, that his license was suspended (see Vehicle and Traffic Law § 511[1][a]; People v Compres, 59 Misc.3d 140 [A], 2018 NY Slip Op 50617[U] [App Term, 1st Dept 2018], lv denied 31 N.Y.3d 1115 [2018]; People v Gerado, 55 Misc.3d 127 [A], 2017 NY Slip Op 50344[U][App Term, 1st Dept 2017], lv denied 29 N.Y.3d 1079 [2017]).