Bronx

Published on: September 15, 2012

Defendant Files Motion to Supress

by Stephen Bilkis

The defendant in this case was charged with Rape in the first degree. He filed a motion to suppress any line-up or photograph identification. He argued that the result of a line-up conducted by the Suffolk County Police Department violated his rights under the Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, and his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to counsel as guaranteed by the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said the Prosecution opposed defendant’s motion, stating that ” . . . defendant has failed to make any factual allegations which are required pursuant to § 710.60 subd. (1) of the CPL . . . ” and therefore, “defendant’s motion . . . should be denied as a matter of law pursuant to § 710.60(3)(b) of the CPL.” However, in the alternative, the Prosecution asserted that defendant’s constitutional rights were not violated.

In support of his motion, Defendant presented an affirmation made by his attorney upon information and belief, the source of his information and the grounds for his belief being the defendant. The affirmation states that the lineup conducted by the Suffolk County Police Department ” . . . was conducted without defendant’s consent or waiver of the presence of counsel . . . ” and that defendant was ” . . . physically forced to participate in a line-up without the benefit of his Miranda warnings or presence of counsel known to the members of the Sixth Precinct to be at that time, representing defendant.”

Published on: September 15, 2012

Defendant Had Eviction Notice Filed Against her for Drug Activity

by Stephen Bilkis

On August 2006, a detective recovered a loaded handgun and approximately 300 small glassine and zip lock bags which were later tested and found to contain a total of 1/8 oz + 0.2 grains of heroin and 1/8 oz + 4.5 grains of cocaine from a woman’s bedroom. An individual who does not live in the apartment and who was not named as an opponent was arrested at the scene. The woman was later arrested at the apartment when she arrived home from work.

a New York Criminal Lawyer said the woman testified that she was a working single mother of two children, who were 10 and 12 years old at the time. During the summer, her sister generally watched her children when she went to work. When her sister was unavailable to see her children, the woman had to ask her neighbors to watch her children during working hours. The man was one of the neighbors who lived with his mother in the same building.

The woman testified that the man did not live in her apartment, that he did not have keys to her apartment and that he watched her children approximately six or seven times during that summer.

Published on: September 14, 2012

Court Discusses Plain View Doctrine

by Stephen Bilkis

This involves a drug crime case where the court concluded that the warrantless seizure of the package by the police officers to the defendant was proper.

The police obtained a search warrant for 2130 East Tremont Avenue, Apartment 7E, in Bronx County in conjunction with a long-term narcotics investigation, during which undercover officers had purchased large amounts of cocaine from occupants of the subject apartment on several prior occasions. The police searched the apartment and recovered a large amount of currency, narcotics, a gun and several forms of drug paraphernalia from inside the apartment. Police officers stationed outside the building recovered drugs wrapped in a paper towel, which had been thrown out of a window by one of the occupants of the apartment. A New York Criminal Lawyer said that after hearing a knock on the door, the police opened the door and defendant entered the apartment. Defendant raised his hands in the air, and a brown paper package fell out from underneath defendant’s jacket to the floor. Upon opening the bag, police officers found a baggie containing half a kilo of cocaine and defendant was arrested for cocaine possession.

Defendant moved pre-trial to suppress the physical evidence recovered by the police.

Published on: September 14, 2012

Defendant Contends his Right to Counsel was Violated

by Stephen Bilkis

In January 1971 a liquor store was robbed by four armed men. While they were robbing the liquor store, the owner of the liquor store was shot and he died. The police who investigated the liquor store robbery arrested three of the four armed men. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the police officer charged them with murder, attempted robbery and criminal possession of a weapon. The fourth man was not found by the police. A warrant for his arrest was outstanding.

Six months after the liquor store robbery, the fourth armed man in the robbery was scheduled to be arraigned on a charge of criminal cocaine possession. As he was waiting for his scheduled arraignment and he was in the holding cell, a police officer who was investigating the liquor store robbery and murder was given an anonymous tip that the fourth gunman was the same as the accused who was scheduled to be arraigned for the criminal cocaine possession.

The police officer went to the holding pen and asked the accused in the criminal cocaine possession charge what his real name was. The accused gave his real name which was the same name given up by the three armed men who were arrested for the liquor store robbery and murder. A New York Drug Crime Lawyer said the police officer then asked the accused if he knew anything about the liquor store robbery. The accused told the police that he did not know anything about that and that it was another person who was involved in the robbery.

Published on: September 14, 2012

Court Decides Whether to Disbar a Lawyer

by Stephen Bilkis

In October 1993, a lawyer, a member of the New York Bar was arrested at 9pm on a street corner in the Bronx. He was arrested and charged with criminal crack cocaine possession.

In June 1998, the same lawyer was apprehended by police officers at a street corner after he purchased crack cocaine. A New York Criminal Lawyer said he was charged with criminal crack cocaine possession. He was later sentenced to three years’ probation. Also in June 1998, the lawyer was arrested and charged with obstructing governmental administration. He was sentenced to three years’ probation as well. At that time, the lawyer offered a New York police officer a sum of money in exchange for the dropping of the drug crime charged against him.

He was also charged under the Code of Professional Responsibility, a law that regulates the conduct of members of the Bar. He was charged with engaging in conduct detrimental to the administration of justice. He was also charged with engaging in conduct adversely reflecting on his fitness to practice law. Aside from his criminal conviction, being a member of the Bar, he also faced other civil consequences of his arrest and conviction by way of an administrative hearing to determine his fitness to continued membership in the New York Bar.

Published on: September 14, 2012

Court Hears Motion to Amend Grand Jury Instruction

by Stephen Bilkis

The People of the State of New York are the plaintiffs in this case against the defendant Luis Pantojas. This case is being heard in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in Bronx County, Part C. The People have moved for an order to amend the direction of a duly empanelled Grand Jury from Bronx County to include the phrase “acting in concert with others” in the proof that was submitted in the case.

Case Background

A New York Sex Crime Lawyer said on the 19th of February, 1986, the Grand Jury heard evidence against the defendant, Luis Pantojas in regard to crimes that allegedly occurred on the 11th of February, 1986. The incident included the defendant, two other males that were not found and a fourteen year old girl complainant. The complainant accused the defendant of accessorial sodomy and accessorial rape.

Published on: September 12, 2012

Defendant Brings Motion to Surppress Motion for Incriminating Statements

by Stephen Bilkis

Defendant was indicted for second degree murder, second degree assault, and second degree weapon possession in connection with a shooting in Brooklyn. One man was shot to death and another was wounded. Thereafter, the Defendant was arrested for a drug crime in Manhattan where he was represented by counsel for the drug charge.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said the Detective from Brooklyn traveled to Manhattan to “pick up” Defendant and bring him to the precinct in Brooklyn for a lineup. Before these lineups, at about 9:00 P.M., Miranda warnings were issued to defendant, who claimed that he knew nothing about the shooting; after the lineups, the Brooklyn Detective advised defendant that he was “charged with homicide.”

Thereafter, they escorted defendant back to Manhattan for his arraignment for the drug crime. After defendant was arraigned and released on his own recognizance, the Brooklyn Detective arrested him for homicide to be brought back later on to the Brooklyn Precinct. The Detectives then took Defendant back to where he had been sitting in the courtroom because “the attorney . . . wanted to speak to him.” They also testified that he overheard the counsel tell defendant that he was “not going across the bridge into Brooklyn to represent him,” and that he didn’t “represent him in the other case. He represents him in the drug case. He’ll have an attorney for his new case in Brooklyn. He also said, I advise you not to speak to the police because I can’t tell you that you cannot speak to the police but I’m advising you not to.”

Published on: September 11, 2012

Claimant Claims She was Incarcerated too Long

by Stephen Bilkis

The claimant who is now 54 years old, has a long history of drug abuse and a lengthy criminal history, consisting primarily of drug crime offenses. Lapidus dropped out of school in the seventh or eighth grade because she was having problems at home, and began using speed and heroin as a teenager. Following a stay in a rehabilitation facility in the late 1970s, the claimant was able to stop using drugs for a period of about nine years. However, toward the end of 1987, after both of her parents became seriously ill and passed away, Lapidus began misusing the valium pills which had been prescribed to her for depression and insomnia. Her drug use then escalated to include heroin possession.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said that on November 14, 1987, the claimant was arrested with a codefendant, on charges, of assault, burglary, and robbery. At the time of this offense, the codefendant was her boyfriend. The victim of the offense was a former boyfriend had ended a relationship with several months earlier. A Bronx Criminal Lawyer said that, two days after her arrest, claimant was arraigned in the Criminal Court of the City of New York and released on her own recognizance. She and the codefendant were subsequently charged, in a 12-count indictment, with multiple offenses including assault in the second degree. When the claimant failed to appear for arraignment on the indictment, a bench warrant was issued. Codefendant was thereafter arraigned on the indictment on April 5, 1988, and he alone proceeded to trial in December 1988. At the conclusion of the codefendants trial, the jury found him guilty of assault in the second degree and, he was sentenced to an indeterminate term of 1½ to 4½ years of imprisonment. Although the claimant did not participate in the trial and was not tried in absentia, a part clerk mistakenly recorded on the court file jacket that she had been found guilty of the identical charge and sentenced on the same date as codefendant. This incorrect information was entered into the court’s computer system, and was reported to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (hereinafter DCJS), the agency responsible for maintaining the criminal histories of individuals arrested in this state. Thus, the purported 1989 assault conviction became part of the claimants criminal record.

In the years following her arrest for the assault of her former boyfriend, claimant was arrested 14 additional times, and convicted of a number of misdemeanor offenses and violations. On August 25, 1997, claimant was arrested and subsequently indicted in New York County for criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree (drug possession). Following a jury trial, she was convicted of the charged offense. Prior to sentencing, the People filed a predicate felony statement alleging that on January 9, 1989, Lapidus had previously been convicted of the felony of assault in the second degree in Kings County. When the claimant appeared for sentencing on the New York County indictment on January 13, 1998, she was arraigned on the predicate felony statement, and advised of her right to controvert any of the allegations in the statement and to challenge the constitutionality of her alleged prior conviction. However, when asked if the allegations set forth in the predicate felony offender statement were true, claimant answered “yes,” and stated that she did not wish to challenge the constitutionality of her prior conviction. She was then adjudicated a second felony offender and was sentenced, in accordance with the prosecutor’s recommendation, to a term of 4½ to 9 years of imprisonment. The sentence imposed was the minimum permissible term for a second felony offender convicted of a class B felony.

Published on: September 11, 2012

Defendant Claims Court Erred Under SORA Guidelines

by Stephen Bilkis

A man lived in his mother’s house with his sister who was a minor. One day, the man chanced upon his sister in the bathroom of their house. The man tried to rape his sister. The sister resisted and was able to escape from her brother. She reported the incident to their mother and she reported the incident to the police.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said the brother was charged with attempted rape in the first degree and sexual abuse in the first degree. Prior to the arraignment, the lawyer for the man asked the trial court to order a psychiatric evaluation of the accused. Two psychiatrists examined the accused and they had similar findings. The first psychiatrist rendered an opinion that the accused suffered from psychiatric disorders which were not specified. A second psychiatrist rendered an opinion that the accused suffered from psychosis. Both of them agreed on the finding that the accused was a threat to himself and to others but that he was fit to stand trial because he was capable of understanding the nature of the charges against him and he can assist in defending himself. Both psychiatrists also recommended that the accused be hospitalized. For this reason, the accused was placed under the custody of the Commissioner of Mental Health.

The accused pleaded guilty to sexual abuse in the first degree and he was sentenced to six months imprisonment and ten years probation.

Published on: September 10, 2012

Defendant Moves to Suppress Physical Evidence

by Stephen Bilkis

An undercover policeman, equipped with a hidden transmitter, entered a social club and, for fifty dollars, purchased cocaine from a man in the front room. He left the club and radioed his backup team. Because the transmission was garbled, they understood only that he had made a buy. The sergeant in charge ordered the team to enter the club and secure it so that no one could leave. A New York Criminal Lawyer said he then went down the street to meet the undercover who described the seller: a bearded black male, thirty years old, medium build, wearing a tan cap, brown leather jacket, glasses, white sneakers, dungarees, and a large silver bracelet.

A Bronx Drug Crime Lawyer said that, the sergeant entered the club, found six or eight persons in the front room, but none of them fit the description. They were released. In the back room were twenty to thirty-five people shooting craps. (The defendant claims he was the banker of the game and thus handled all of the wagered money.) The players were made to walk in single file past the sergeant. The defendant was held because he “fit the description a hundred percent”. But, belying certainty, the sergeant also held three or four others because they “partially fit the description”. He had all of them frisked for weapons. Then, obviously to pinpoint the drug seller among the suspects, the sergeant asked which of them had any money. When the defendant and another acknowledged that they had the sergeant said, “Let me have it”. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the defendant handed over $101, included in which were the marked fifty dollars the undercover had used in the purchase. The defendant was told he was under arrest and the others were released.

The defendant was taken by police car to the station where the undercover looked at him through a one-way mirror. He said that “he thought it was him, but he was not sure”. The sergeant said “If you are not a hundred percent sure it’s him, then I’m going to release him”. Again, the undercover responded that “he could not be a hundred percent sure at that time”. While the process to release the defendant was going on, a cap and glasses found in the transporting car were placed on him. After that the sergeant told the undercover that the defendant “fits the description. He has the bracelet. He has the beard, the cap. He has the glasses and he has the jacket. He has the money”. The undercover then identified the defendant as the drug seller.