Opinion
No. 570043/16
10-14-2022
The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Ruben Rivera, Defendant-Appellant.
Unpublished Opinion
Defendant appeals from a judgment of the Criminal Court of the City of New York, New York County (Lisa A. Sokoloff, J.), rendered July 23, 2015, convicting him, upon his plea of guilty, of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, and imposing sentence.
PRESENT: Hagler, J.P., Tisch, Michael, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Judgment of conviction (Lisa A. Sokoloff, J.), rendered July 23, 2015, affirmed.
In view of defendant's knowing waiver of the right to prosecution by information, the accusatory instrument only had to satisfy the reasonable cause requirement of a misdemeanor complaint (see People v Dumay, 23 N.Y.3d 518, 522 [2014]). So viewed, the accusatory instrument was jurisdictionally valid because it described facts of an evidentiary nature establishing reasonable cause to believe that defendant was guilty of seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance (see Penal Law § 220.03). The instrument alleged that after a police officer observed defendant "hand" a "small object" to a "separately charged" defendant (Creamer), the officer then "recovered one twist of crack/cocaine" from the hand of Creamer. Contrary to defendant's contention, the factfinder could reasonably infer from the pleaded facts that the twist of crack/cocaine recovered from Creamer was the same "small object" that defendant "hand[ed]" to Creamer (see People v Walton, 60 Misc.3d 127 [A], 2018 NY Slip Op 50932[U] [App Term, 1st Dept 2018], lv denied 32 N.Y.3d 1009 [2018]), and therefore defendant possessed the twist of crack/cocaine himself (see People v Robinson, 129 A.D.3d 550 [2015], lv denied 26 N.Y.3d 1010 [2015]).
All concur