Robbery

Published on: July 1, 2012

Defendant Claims Conviction Violates Equal Protection Laws

by Stephen Bilkis

This is a case involving the People of the State of New York versus the defendant Michael D. The case is being heard in the Criminal Term of the Supreme Court of the State of New York located in Queens County.

The defendant, Michael D. has moved for this court to set aside his sentencing based on the fact that his sentencing was in violation of his rights under the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the Constitution of the United States of America and is therefore not valid.

Case Background

Published on: June 29, 2012

Defendant Claims Bringing Up Prior Acts Prejudiced Jury

by Stephen Bilkis

Drug Possession crimes are a problem in every city in the United States, but courts do not usually expect to find them on their own back doorsteps. In the case of the Supreme Court of Bronx County in 1972, they did not expect to find the drug problem on the very steps of the courthouse. However, that is exactly what transpired in September of 1972. An undercover narcotics team was working a case involving a drug ring that was operating out of Franz Segal Park just around the corner from the Bronx County Supreme Court building. The narcotics undercover team made three different purchases of narcotics from the dealer on September 8, 11, and 12.

The undercover officer would meet with the dealer in Franz Park, make the purchase, and then return to the team with the cocaine. The narcotic would be tested to ensure that it was cocaine. The undercover officer was wearing a wire so that the transaction was tape recorded. However, there was no video at the time that was effective in the field. Following the third purchase, the defendant was arrested for trafficking in narcotics. In his trial, he testified that he was not a drug dealer and that he had never sold anyone any drugs. The undercover team had to testify that they had not witnessed the transactions and had only seen the undercover officer leave with the money and come back with the cocaine (cocaine possession).

Interestingly, at trial the prosecutor questioned the officer extensively about the purchases that he made from the defendant in Franz Park. He went in to great detail to show that the time and place of the transaction for which the defendant was charged was identical to the time and place in which he had previously been arrested for dealing drugs. The problem with this line of questioning was that according to the law, prior offenses can only be brought up in trial to show the credibility of the witness. A prosecutor may not use questioning on previous acts to show a propensity to commit the crime that the defendant is on trial. That policy is set forth in People v. Schwartzman, Supra, 24 N.Y.2d p. 247, 299 N.Y.S. 2d p. 822, 247 N.E.2d p. 645. The crimes for which the prosecutor was referring were the two prior drug deals that were under indictment, yet not adjudicated by the time of the trial in question.

Published on: June 1, 2012

Defendant Charged with Sex Crimes, Robbery

by Stephen Bilkis

A man was convicted of criminal cocaine possession and sale; and criminal marijuana sale when he sold cocaine and marijuana to an undercover police officer at nine different times and at nine different places.

Because of the sales of controlled substances to undercover police officers, the police had enough bases for a search warrant. When they searched the man’s apartment they found cocaine there. The man pleaded guilty to criminal sale and was sentenced to a prison term of 7 ½ to 15 years. After his conviction and pending his sentencing, the man was still out on bail. He undertook before the Court to appear whenever his presence was required and he also undertook not to be arrested on new charges.

During the time of his conditional release, the man had sex with a thirteen year old girl who was his neighbor’s daughter. He had sex with her in his apartment five different times. The thirteen year old girl got pregnant and the man moved to a different apartment in another building.

Published on: May 18, 2012

Court Decides if Incriminating Statements are Admissible

by Stephen Bilkis

On September 30, 1974, three men wearing bandanas on their faces entered the house of a man and rounded up all the people in his house. The three men threatened the man of the house at gunpoint and told him that they will kill his children if he did not open his safe and give them all the valuables he had.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said the man complied and opened his safe. As he was opening his safe, the bandana on the face of one of the three armed men came loose and fell off. The man of the house got a good look at his face. But just the same the man of the house gave the armed men all the cash in his safe, a diamond ring and his coin collection which was worth around $40,000.00. The armed man whose face he saw was the same man who pointed a gun to his head all the while that he was opening the safe.

A month later, the man of the house was summoned by the Nassau police. They asked him to identify one of the armed men, the one whose face he saw, from a line up they had. The man of the house positively identified the armed man whose bandana fell from his face.

Published on: May 17, 2012

Defendant Contends Improrper Jurisdiction

by Stephen Bilkis

The Grand Jury of the Special Narcotics Courts voted an indictment against the accused men charging them with criminal possession of a weapon and conspiracy in violation of the Penal Law. In summary, a New York Criminal Lawyer the court alleges that a confidential informant contacted one of the accused, offering him an opportunity to rob drug dealers of a valuable supply of narcotics and cash. The accused allegedly accepted the informant’s offer and engaged the three accused men to be part of the robbery gang. The case detectives instructed the informant to tell the accused men the robbery location. It is alleged that the informant and the four accused men loaded two vehicles with a number of weapons and went to that Bronx location with the intention to commit a burglary and a robbery.

The accused men filed omnibus discovery motions, to which the court responded. The State also supplied the grand jury minutes to the court for in camera examination. After examining the grand jury minutes, the court ordered the parties to submit additional memoranda of law on two jurisdictional questions. To enable the parties to fully brief the issue, the court found that release of certain portions of the grand jury minutes to the parties was necessary to assist the court in making the determination on the motion.

The Crime Investigator testified in the grand jury. In summary, the informant testified that he had continuous conversations with one of the accused; however, his testimony is devoid of any references to where he or his co-accused was located when they had the telephone conversations. Furthermore, it is apparent from the grand jury minutes that none of the face-to-face meetings between the informant and the accused men occurred in Manhattan. The sole reference to Manhattan in the informant’s testimony is contained in the informant’s recitation of why he was at a certain place at a certain time.

Published on: May 17, 2012

Court Discusses the Drug Law Reform Act

by Stephen Bilkis

In 1997, officers assigned to the New York City Police Department’s Narcotics Division were conducting a short-term undercover operation for the purchase of heroin. A New York Criminal Lawyer said that at midnight in the area of Bronx County, the accused, while acting with two other male individuals, sold a quantity of heroin to an undercover police officer. The accused was arrested and charged by indictment with criminal sale of a controlled substance in or near school grounds and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree. More than a year after the undercover operation, a jury convicted the accused of both offenses.

The court adjudicated the accused, a second felony offender and entered judgment against him, imposing two indeterminate concurrent terms of twenty-two years imprisonment with a mandatory minimum period of eleven years. The basis of the adjudication was a judgment of conviction for attempted robbery, a class D violent felony offense.

The Appellate Division affirmed the accused man’s conviction, but modified his sentence to an indeterminate term of twelve years imprisonment with a mandatory minimum period of six years. The Court of Appeals denied the accused man’s application for leave to appeal.

Published on: May 13, 2012

Court Listens To Violent Robbery Case

by Stephen Bilkis

One day a woman and her husband parked their automobile alongside a river. While picnicking in their car, two men in a light blue vehicle drove up beside them. One of the men exited their car, approached the couple’s vehicle, pointed a shotgun on the husband’s head and demanded money. The other individual, who wears a mask, approached the woman. The man opened the car’s door, grabbed the woman’s purse and pulled her out the vehicle.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said the unmasked assailant then approached the woman and shot her in the face. The assailant left the scene and the woman eventually returned to their vehicle. The police and an ambulance arrived and brought the woman to the hospital for treatment.

A police investigation of the shooting proceeded. The police, however, failed to recover any physical evidence from the scene. A single latent fingerprint was recovered from the victims’ car and subsequent analysis revealed that the print matched neither that of the victims nor of the attackers. The video surveillance of the area revealed images of a light blue vehicle approaches the couple’s car and later departed. Consequently, the woman initially gave a description of her attacker.

Published on: May 12, 2012

Court Charges Accomplice with Robbery

by Stephen Bilkis

A man met some friends one afternoon and drove with them in his car to another friend’s house. There they all spent the night. The next morning, two of his friends asked him to drive them to an address in Queens where he was going to see a man about a job. The friend who owned the car agreed to drive his two friends to Queens.

During the drive to Queens, the driver/owner of the car observed and saw one of his friends in possession of a gun. He dropped off his two friends. Before drove away, one of his friends came back to the car, showed him the gun and told him that they were planning to rob the house. The driver/owner of the car drove away.

A few minutes after he drove away, he was accosted by police officers on the road just a short distance from the address where he dropped them off. He was asked by the police officers who stopped him if he knew the two men he dropped off. He said he knew them. He admitted that he had dropped them off. What he did not admit was that he knew that they had planned to rob the house where he dropped them off. He never told the police that he saw one of his friends in possession of a gun.

Published on: May 12, 2012

Court Contends Defendant is Mentally Ill

by Stephen Bilkis

On 29 November 2005, defendant entered a plea of not responsible by reason of a mental disease or defect to the crime of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree, and to other related offenses, in violation of criminal laws.

On 23 January 2004, it was alleged that defendant displayed a firearm while threatening to use it against the complainant, the defendant’s sister-in-law, and that said actions caused her fear of physical injury.

A commitment order was issued and the defendant was remanded to the care and custody of the State Commissioner of Mental Health. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the defendant was confined in a secure facility.

Published on: May 11, 2012

Court Convicts Man of Robbery

by Stephen Bilkis

A man was charged with robbery in the first degree and related offenses. The man then filed a motion seeking various forms of pretrial relief. His motion for court inspection of the grand jury minutes is granted and his motion for release of the grand jury minutes is denied.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said the evidence presented to the grand jury revealed that the man entered a pharmacy wearing what the witness described as a bandana over the lower part of the face and a baseball hat. The said man displayed and clicked what a looked like gun to the store clerk and demanded to fill the bag with money. The clerk obeyed the demand and the robber fled from the store with the money. Six days after the incident, the clerk identified the man in a police-arranged lineup.

Consequently, the arresting detective was also presented to the grand jury. The detective testified to a statement made by the man after his arrest in which the man admitted that he had entered the pharmacy on the date of the crime wearing a handkerchief over his face. The man further stated that he showed a gun to the clerk behind the counter, clicked it and demanded for money. The man also stated that after receiving the money he fled. With respect to the gun, the man stated it was a small 380, black in color and there were no bullets inside.