Opinion
December 4, 1989
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Groh, J.).
Ordered that the judgments are affirmed.
These cases arise out of two separate incidents involving the same defendant. In each, more than one eighth of an ounce of a controlled substance was recovered and two Mapp hearings were held to determine whether the evidence should be suppressed. At the hearing held in connection with indictment No. 6420/85, the police officer testified that after seeing the defendant in an alleyway, in a high-crime area, he drove his patrol car into that alleyway with the headlights shining on the defendant and, as he was exiting the car at a distance of approximately 15 feet from the defendant, he saw the defendant toss a cigarette package to the ground. The officer walked directly to that package and found therein what was later determined to be cocaine.
In the second and unrelated incident which gave rise to indictment No. 946/86, another police officer testified that as he was approaching the defendant to ask for his assistance as a possible translator at the scene of the arrest of a third party, the defendant threw a package to the ground which almost immediately was picked up by a fellow officer and handed to him. That package was found to contain 21 packets of white powder which was later determined to be cocaine.
We find that the hearing court properly denied suppression of the evidence. The defendant's argument that in both instances the testimony of the officers was incredible is unavailing. Issues of credibility are primarily for the hearing court to determine and its findings will not be disturbed on appeal unless they are clearly erroneous (see, People v McIver, 147 A.D.2d 592, 593; People v Armstead, 98 A.D.2d 726). Here, it cannot be said that the officers' testimony was incredible as a matter of law (cf., People v Martinez, 71 A.D.2d 905). Further, there is no evidence in the record that would indicate, as the defendant suggests, that the police officers' testimony was patently tailored to meet constitutional objections (see, People v Santiago, 144 A.D.2d 502; People v Matias, 137 A.D.2d 625; People v Rivera, 121 A.D.2d 166, affd 68 N.Y.2d 786). Brown, J.P., Lawrence, Kooper and Balletta, JJ., concur.