Drug Possesion

Published on: May 12, 2012

Defendant Contends with Premises Liability Issues

by Stephen Bilkis

The Facts of the Case:

A New York Drug Posession Lawyer said the plaintiff was a tenant in a building located at Academy Street in Manhattan, owned by defendant-one and managed by defendant-two.

On 26 February 2002, in the early afternoon, plaintiff entered the building through the lone entrance available to the tenants. A man whom plaintiff did not recognize entered the building immediately after her. The man walked ahead of plaintiff up a staircase, which plaintiff was using to reach her unit on the second floor. As plaintiff opened the door to her apartment, the man, who had continued up the staircase when plaintiff walked from the staircase to her unit, ran down the staircase and pushed plaintiff into the apartment. The man then sexually assaulted plaintiff at gunpoint.

Published on: May 12, 2012

Court Discusses Felony Murder Rule

by Stephen Bilkis

An appeal was made by a woman for a gun crime that killed a police officer. The woman and her boyfriend drove to New York City to visit some friends. A New York Drug Crime Lawyer said that after the first few nights, the couple settled in at the Hempstead Motor Inn. On the afternoon of Saturday, as the couple drove past a woman’s clothing store, the stated that she like the black dress. They entered the boutique, which is located near the intersection, through the front door. The bathroom of the boutique has a window which looks out onto the rear parking area. The window was covered by wooden slats and glass slats. The woman went into the fitting room to try on some clothes, but his boyfriend wasn’t in sight when she came out. The sales attendant informed the woman that her boyfriend had asked to use the bathroom. The woman went back to the fitting room and when she again came out, her boyfriend was standing by the front window, front door and he had picked out a blouse for her to try on. Although she didn’t buy anything she had seen, she did buy the blouse picked out for her by her boyfriend and they left the store without buying anything.

In her statement given after complete Miranda warnings, the woman said that on the afternoon of the gun crime incident, she and her boyfriend went into Manhattan, where he purchased an ankle holster for his gun; that she remained outside the store while her boyfriend bought it, and she wasn’t aware of what he had bought, notwithstanding the fact that she put the bag into her purse. Later, in the early hours of the morning after, the couple decided to get something to eat and the woman changed her clothes. They drove to a bar, when they arrive, her boyfriend told her to stay in the car while he looked for a man. Her boyfriend returned a short time later and they drove around, finally backing into an alleyway and turning out the lights. When the woman asked what he was doing, he allegedly replied not to worry.

The woman stayed in the car to watch for the cops while her boyfriend broke into the back window of the clothing boutique.

Published on: May 12, 2012

Defendant Contends Police Initiated Contact Inappropropriate

by Stephen Bilkis

On 23 January 1997 at approximately 3:30 A.M., an investigator from the Albany County Sheriff’s Department boarded a bus which had arrived from New York City. The investigator, wearing civilian clothing with his police badge prominently displayed on his coat, was accompanied by two other officers. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the investigator announced that they were conducting a drug interdiction and asked everyone on board, approximately fifteen passengers, to produce bus tickets and identification. He then proceeded to the back of the bus to begin examining those items from each passenger.

As the investigator was walking to the rear of the bus, he observed defendant and a female companion, sitting in the last row of seats, push a black object between them. He approached the two individuals and asked for their identification and bus tickets. The investigator then obtained consent to search defendant’s bag which led to the discovery of a digital scale; asked defendant and his companion to stand at which time he saw a black jacket on defendant’s seat. The officer found more than two ounces of cocaine in the jacket pocket (drug possession).

Defendant was indicted on one count of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the second degree and one count of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, drug crimes.

Published on: May 12, 2012

Police Officer Killed in the Process of a Burglary

by Stephen Bilkis

On October 4, 1975 a man and a woman went inside a boutique. The woman tried on dresses but did not buy any. While the woman was trying on dresses, her boyfriend asked the boutique owner if he could use her bathroom. The man observed that there was a big window in the bathroom that faced a back alley.

Three days later, the lovers parked their car in the back alley with the trunk of their car facing the back window of the bathroom. A New York Criminal Lawyer said that the woman stayed near their car while her boyfriend entered the store and took clothing items and gave them to his girlfriend who stashed the clothes in the trunk.

A police officer on routine patrol passed through on his cruiser down the back alley and saw the woman; he saw clothes being pushed out of the widow, and the woman stashing the clothes in the trunk. He called for back-up and he saw the woman hide behind the car. The police officer approached and talked to the woman and asked her what she was doing. The police officer did not immediately place her under arrest.

Published on: May 12, 2012

Court Dicusses Drug Rehabilitation Program

by Stephen Bilkis

A 17-yr old defendant’s motion places in prospective whether his satisfactory “second chance” experience, as a full-time participant in a residential drug rehabilitation program, designed to return addicts (ex) or substance abusers to society, constitutes such a compelling factor, consideration or circumstance to warrant dismissal of the two top counts of the indictment Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance In The Second Degree and Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance In The Third Degree, which counts require mandatory minimums of incarceration upon conviction; cocaine possession or crack possession, a drug crime violative of criminal laws.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said the People contend that the moving defendant who has no prior criminal record assisted a co-defendant in the sale of 7/8ths of an ounce of cocaine to an undercover police purchaser. Defendant was then a drug user with a dependency problem.

A pre-sentence evaluation of defendant by the Department of Probation indicates in part that he is a resident of an upstate drug program apparently raised by interested and caring parents who began abusing drugs at approximately the age of 13; apparently unable to come to terms with his abuse problems until his instant arrest; voluntarily committed himself to the Renaissance Project; he no longer denies that he has a problem and is apparently taking some action to deal with his drug abuse problem.

Published on: May 12, 2012

Defendant Contends Illegal Search and Seizure

by Stephen Bilkis

One evening, a detective was assigned as backup to an undercover police officer who was attempting to buy controlled substances at a social club. Nowhere in the records is it showed that the undercover officer was able to achieve such objective. However, later that night, the undercover officer advised the backup detective by radio transmission that a tall white male with a pony tail approached her inside the social club and asked her “if she wanted to take a hit of cocaine”. The undercover officer referred to the subject by name. It is not clear from the records of the case whether the undercover officer and the subject engaged in any additional conversation.

At about six hours after the undercover officer was offered with cocaine, she left the social club. Thereafter, the detective and other police officers arrived at the social club. The police directed its occupants to leave, and “stopped” and searched the defendant and “everybody when they came out”. The detective recovered a packet of cocaine from the defendant’s jacket pocket (drug possession) and a .38 caliber automatic gun (gun crime) from the defendant’s boot.

It is uncertain from the record whether the defendant was arrested before or after the search.

Published on: May 12, 2012

Mother’s Day Gathering Ends in Disaster

by Stephen Bilkis

On this proceeding, the man moves to be granted judgment without trial to dismiss the complaint against him.

The man is the brother of the complainant woman. The siblings separated since an event that occurred during mother’s day at a family gathering. Based on records, there have been numerous family court matters involving their family.

On the said event, a New York Criminal Lawyer said a sixteen year old nephew of the complainant and the man exposed himself and masturbated in front of the man’s five year old daughter. The said incident caused a huge schism in the family, with various family members taking sides against each other. At some point after the incident, the complainant, who was a hall monitor at an old elementary school, confronted the daughter of the man. According to the man, the complainant cross examined his daughter about the incident. As a result on the said confrontation to the child, the man alleged that her daughter became frightened and did not want to see or speak to the complainant.

Published on: May 12, 2012

Defendant Charged with Murder

by Stephen Bilkis

A man was convicted of gun crime murder of another man whom he personally knew. The murder occurred one Sunday of March 1975 at two o’clock in the morning. A woman, who is a sole nonparticipant eyewitness to the gun crime, lived in a one-family residence on the north side of the crime scene. A New York Criminal Lawyer said she was in her early forties and did not wear eyeglasses. During the week she was a government postal employee and had a part-time job delivering newspapers every Sundays.

One Sunday morning, the witness planned to arise at 2:00 A.M. and set her alarm clock accordingly. Just before the alarm went off, she heard a noise that sounded like a fire cracker but when she got up and looked, she saw what it was. She turned off the alarm and walked to her front door, a matter of only a few steps. The interior of the house was in complete darkness.

An automobile was parked right outside her house, on the north side of the street, facing west. Illumination was provided by a mercury vapor overhead streetlight. The car was parked under the light. The witness viewed the killing from about 80 feet away.

Published on: May 12, 2012

Defendant Charged with Criminal Possession of a Weapon

by Stephen Bilkis

Two plainclothes police officers were sitting in an unmarked car which was parked near a high crime area just outside a bar. For the past two weeks prior to the incident, there had been hold-ups in the neighborhood. They noticed a car with African-American males in it slow down in front of the bar and stop their car briefly. A New York Criminal Lawyer said they looked around and all three occupants of the car stared at the bar.

The police officer followed the car. The car stopped at a stop sign. And the car went again and slowed down in front of another bar. They briefly paused in front of the bar and all the males stared at the bar. Then they went on their way. The police car still followed them for half a block and then the police officer stopped the car.

The police officer asked for the license and registration. The driver of the car got out of the car and tried to explain to the police officer that he had forgotten his wallet in the house. The other two passengers in the car bent down over their seats. The other two men didn’t have any IDs either.

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.