People v Soto

People v Soto 2010 NY Slip Op 00573 [69 AD3d 531] January 28, 2010 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Israel Soto, Appellant.

—[*1] Steven Banks, The Legal Aid Society, New York (Susan Epstein of counsel), for appellant.

Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Cassiah M. Ward of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Richard D. Carruthers, J.), rendered October 2, 2007, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal possession of a weapon in the second and third degrees and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, and sentencing him, as a second violent felony offender, to an aggregate term of 10 years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant did not preserve his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, and we decline to review it in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, we find that the verdict was based on legally sufficient evidence. We further find that the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence (see People v Danielson, 9 NY3d 342, 348-349 [2007]). The evidence, especially when viewed in light of the presumption contained in Penal Law § 265.15 (3), warrants the conclusion that defendant possessed a revolver found behind the front passenger seat of a car. Defendant had been observed sitting in that seat for 20 to 30 minutes, and he was the sole occupant of the car. Although defendant was not the registered owner, the owner testified that she had given defendant the car months before, and that she had removed her belongings.

We perceive no basis for reducing the sentence. Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P., Sweeny, Moskowitz, Manzanet-Daniels and RomÁn, JJ.