Opinion
June 28, 1993
Appeal from the Supreme Court, King County (Douglass, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
There is no merit to the defendant's contention that his conviction should be reversed and that a new trial should be ordered because he was absent from the Sandoval hearing. Even if the defendant was absent from the Sandoval hearing, his presence, under the circumstances of this case, would have been superfluous because the court ruled that it would only allow cross-examination into the fact that the defendant had two prior misdemeanor convictions and not into the underlying facts of those convictions (see, People v. Robles, 192 A.D.2d 425; People v. Odiat, 191 A.D.2d 183). Thompson, J.P., Miller, Eiber and Santucci, JJ., concur.