New York

Published on: February 24, 2013

Court Discusses Elements of Larceny

by Stephen Bilkis

A couple was on welfare. A New York Criminal Lawyer said they received a check from the New York Department of Social Services. They were entitled to a sum but they received a check that was over and above the sum they usually received.

On the back of the welfare check, there was an undertaking that they must inform the Department of Social Services if the check they received had a face value that was $5.00 more than the amount they used to receive.

The couple received the amount of $1500 more than they were entitled to. They cashed the checks even if they knew that the amounts were over and above the amount they were entitled to. The checks they cashed were received by them between 1969 and 1973.

Published on: February 23, 2013

Defendant Pleads Guilty to Grand Larceny Charges

by Stephen Bilkis

A man was charged with grand larceny for having taken a car from its owner. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the car was valued at $500. The indictment stated that the man intended to deprive the owner of the car the use and benefit of the car. And when he took the car, he fully intended to use and operate the car for his own profit use and benefit. The indictment also alleged that the taking of the car was without the consent of the owner of the car.

The man pleaded guilty to the charge of grand larceny. The man’s plea of guilt was made after he was duly advised by the court that he had a right to be represented by a lawyer of his choice and if he could not afford a lawyer, one can be provided for him. Even when he did not have any lawyer present, the man still pleaded guilty. The trial court sentenced the accused to imprisonment for not less than five years and not more than ten years spent in hard labor.

The accused then filed a motion to vacate his conviction. This time, he asked for a lawyer to be provided for him. A private lawyer was appointed to defend him pro bono. The lawyer asked for an adjournment so that he can prepare a brief of his arguments to support the motion to vacate the man’s conviction for grand larceny. The adjournment was granted. The lawyer for the man filed a brief and trial was scheduled. No testimony was offered during the hearing.

Published on: February 22, 2013

Defendant Claims the People Failed to Establish Burden of Proof in Larceny Case

by Stephen Bilkis

This is an appeal by defendant from a judgment of the County Court, Suffolk County, rendered April 21, 1976, convicting him of grand larceny in the second degree (13 counts) and grand larceny in the third degree (2 counts), upon a jury verdict, and sentencing him to indeterminate terms of imprisonment with a maximum of seven years on each of the counts of grand larceny in the second degree, and to indeterminate terms of imprisonment with a maximum of four years on each count of grand larceny in the third degree, the sentences on all counts to run consecutively.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said that, defendant’s convictions are based upon the taking of money from various individuals from March, 1972 to February, 1974 in connection with an investment scheme, commonly referred to as a “Pyramid Scheme”. The prosecution proceeded under a theory of larceny by false promise, pursuant to section 155.05 of the Penal Law. A Suffolk Grand Larceny Lawyer said that, defendant’s primary contention on appeal is that the People failed to sustain their burden of proving this particular type of larceny, in that the representations made by him and his agents to the witnesses, as to how their money would be invested, were in fact carried out. Defendant contends that he at all times intended to fulfill his promises as to the investment plan and was merely a victim of some “bad investments”.

The issue in this case is whether the people failed to sustain their burden of proving the particular type of grand larceny.

Published on: February 5, 2013

Court Sentences Defendant to Judicial Diversion Program

by Stephen Bilkis

The defendant was charged with several counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument, grand larceny and scheme to defraud. The parties to the case put in issue the eligibility of the accused for judicial diversion. The defendant argued that he is entitled for the judicial diversion program since he was indicted with crime of grand larceny where such offense is included in the list for the statute to be eligible for such program and none of the other crimes he was charged were considered exclusions to the said program. The respondent questioned the felon’s eligibility because only one of the several counts of charges filed against him rendered him eligible for the judicial diversion.

The statute listed down the specific exceptions to being an “eligible defendant,” to wit, “any defendant convicted of a violent felony offense, any other offense for which a merit time allowance is not available, or a class A drug felony within the preceding ten years. Also listed as an exception is that any defendant who has previously been adjudicated a second violent felony offender or a persistent violent offender.” A New York Criminal Lawyer said such exclusions to warrant denial of being eligible for judicial diversion were not applicable to the case of the accused.

Considering that the simple and clear language of the law lead to the conclusion by the Court that the defendant was not caused to be ineligible for the program simply because he was charged with other offenses in the indictment, which was not listed in the statute entitled to the judicial diversion. Although the statutory act sets forth particular circumstances that would make a person ineligible, it failed to indicate that the charges against the defendant are mutually exclusive with the qualifying offenses or the inclusion of non-qualifying offenses in the indictment would subject the accused to ineligibility.

Published on: February 1, 2013

Defendant to Multiple Criminal Charges was a Police Officer

by Stephen Bilkis

The defendant was charged with several crimes and was found guilty for the commission of said crimes that included grand larceny, bribery receiving, official misconduct, and sale of illegal drug, criminal possession of stolen property and unlawfully disposing of a weapon. The accused who was a police officer, being accompanied by another individual, threatened a person that, if the latter did not turn over gun and money he owned, he will be arrested. It was also averred that the appellant took possession of marihuana from an individual whom he did not arrest and sold said marihuana to another. And lastly, it was contended that the indicted police failed to voucher a stolen revolver in his possession, but instead gave it to another without authority. Thus, an appeal was filed before the court to resolve the issue of his conviction to said crimes.

The issues of the appeal were the defendant’s indictment of possession of stolen property and unlawfully disposing the same and the crimes of sale of illegal drug. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the surrounding circumstances of the alleged felony was that the police officer asked another law enforcer, who was an undercover agent of the internal affairs, to keep the “throwaway gun” in his behalf for fear of his possible detention due to the investigations about his police activities being conducted at that time. Although evidence was presented to prove that the subject gun was a stolen property, it cannot show that the convicted police officer had knowledge of the fact that it was indeed a stolen gun. As provided in the statute, the indispensible element for the crime of criminal possession of stolen property was the actual knowledge of the accused that the gun in issue was a subject of theft. This was reiterated in the case of the Supreme Court, to wit “the gravamen of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property is possession of stolen property with knowledge of its stolen character. The element of knowledge of the stolen character of the property is essential.” As such, evidence must be presented before the jury to establish the element of knowledge of the stolen character of the gun by the defendant, otherwise, an indictment for that criminal offense may not stand. No direct evidence was shown to the grand jury to ascertain that the appellant had knowledge that the gun was stolen.

It was noted by the court that there was no instruction given to the jury for considering circumstantial evidence in relation to the crime in question. As decided in several jurisprudence, “the prosecutor wholly failed to instruct the jury as to the requirements of legal insufficiency in a circumstantial evidence case… the failure to instruct the jury on the standard to be applied deprives of legal significance the factual determination implicit in the indictment.”

Published on: January 18, 2013

Defendants Charged with Fraud By False Promise

by Stephen Bilkis

In this criminal case, in 1986 although the installation of individual water meters was required in commercial and industrial buildings, 630,000 one and two family homes were unmetered and billed for water on an arcane basis unrelated to usage and predicated on property frontage. The City decided to meter these homes and to do so through a municipal installation project rather than by requiring the individual homeowners to install them. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the City would use a competitive bidding process, and award contracts according to the boundaries of the City’s community boards. As is common in such contract bidding processes, the City prepared bid packages for prospective bidders. In addition to technical information and cost estimates, the bid package informed prospective bidders that they would be required to calculate labor costs in accordance with Labor Law Section 220, which requires contractors performing public works projects to pay the workers the prevailing wage. The bid packages let out in 1989 and 1990 also required that the contracting party would have to perform certain work known as pre-plumbing work. In essence, the contracts with the City would require that pre-plumbing work be supervised by a licensed master plumber.

After conducting pre-bid conferences, the City circulated an addendum to the bid specifications which set forth the specific wages that the bidders would be required to pay their employees. The defendants received this addendum. After the bids were publicly opened, the lowest bid was determined and the contracts were awarded to the defendants. The defendants executed formal contracts, to which were annexed the bid information and the wage schedules, which were also incorporated by reference. Each contract provided: The wages to be paid and the supplements to be provided, for a legal day’s work, to laborers, workmen or mechanics employed by the Contractor shall not be less than the prevailing wages and supplement required to be paid to such employees, as ascertained and prescribed by the Comptroller in the Specifications attached hereto.

A New York Grand Larceny Lawyer said that, the indictment charges larceny by false promise, grand larceny by false pretenses, scheme to defraud, and filing of a false instrument, conspiracy, and perjury. The thrust of the indictment is that the defendants never intended to comply with the prevailing wage and pre-plumbing master plumber requirements. Among other evidence which was presented to the Jury was that the defendants calculated their bids based on piecework rather than hourly costs, that they promised workers the higher of piecework or hourly rate, but only paid a piecework rate that resulted in a lower wage than an hourly rate at the prevailing wages, that the defendants arranged with a licensed plumber to falsely make it appear that a licensed plumber was supervising pre-plumbing work, and that the defendants submitted false and perjurious forms to the City certifying they had complied with the contracts.

Published on: January 17, 2013

Court Unravels Complicated Larceny Case

by Stephen Bilkis

The charges in this case arise from five separate incidents, beginning in July 1986. On July 3, 1986, a man representing himself as an executive of a foreign branch of General Electric Corporation, asked that $5,000 in travelers’ checks be prepared and delivered to an associate, K.D. Thereafter, defendant appeared at the offices of General Electric, identifying himself as K.D., and as KD, signed five Citicorp travelers’ checks purchase agreements, one for each of five $1,000 packets of checks, then signed many of the checks in the upper left hand corner, as required of purchasers. A New York Criminal Lawyer said when it was discovered a week or two later that there had been no authorization for the checks, most, if not all, of the checks had been negotiated at various metropolitan locations. A New York Grand Larceny Lawyer said that, defendant was convicted of one count of grand larceny in the second degree for stealing property having an aggregate value in excess of $1,500, three counts of forgery in the second degree and three counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree with respect to the travelers’ checks and of forgery in the second degree with respect to the purchase agreement.

Thereafter, defendant stayed at the Days Inn in Manhattan registering as KD, and advancing $140 as a deposit. During his stay, he presented the cashier with a purchase order from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, providing that Met Life was to be billed for the room, taxes and incidental expenses. Days Inn refunded defendant his initial deposit and the bill for his four day stay ($819.67) was never paid since defendant was neither employed by Metropolitan nor authorized to present such a purchase order. A Long Island Criminal Lawyer said that, defendant was convicted of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree.

Thereafter, defendant was arrested at the Omni Park Central Hotel when the police traced his car to that location and learned a K.D. was registered there. A Chevron Gulf credit card belonging to RG was recovered from defendant. Upon his arrest, defendant was charged with forgery in the second degree, criminal impersonation in the second degree, and theft of services, all arising from the Days Inn incident. At the trial, a New York Criminal Lawyer said that, defendant was acquitted of criminal possession of stolen property in the second degree relating to the possession of the Chevron credit card.

Published on: January 10, 2013

Defendant Claims He Was Not Given Adequate Notice of Grand Larceny Charges

by Stephen Bilkis

In this criminal case, the proof established that in the five-year period from 1984 to 1989, the defendant represented himself as a spiritual healer, generally charging people $20 per consultation. During the consultations, the defendant purported to transform himself into various spirits who would offer advice and claim that they could cure illnesses. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the defendant, acting through these spirits, induced victims to lend him sums of money, sometimes in the thousands of dollars, which “loans” he never repaid. The defendant also told some of his victims that he was an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, using this false claim as a further means of obtaining money from them.

A Queens Grand Larceny Lawyer said that, defendant was convicted of grand larceny in the second degree, grand larceny in the third degree (four counts), scheme to defraud in the first degree, criminal impersonation in the second degree (four counts) and fortune telling (five counts), upon a jury verdict, and sentencing him to an indeterminate term of 3 to 9 years imprisonment for grand larceny in the second degree, four indeterminate terms of 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years imprisonment for grand larceny in the third degree, an indeterminate term of 1 to 3 years imprisonment for scheme to defraud in the first degree, four definite terms of one year imprisonment for criminal impersonation in the second degree, and five definite terms of 60 days imprisonment for fortune telling, with all terms of imprisonment to run consecutive to each other.

A Queens Grand Larceny Lawyer said that, the defendant claims that he was not given fair notice of the grand larceny charges against him to enable him to prepare an adequate defense to those charges. He contends, in essence, that proper notification of the charges should not be reduced to a matter of guess work, and that a conviction on any count for which the defendant has not been given proper notification of the nature of the charge should not be countenanced. Specifically, neither the indictment, the bill of particulars, the Jury minutes supplied to the defendant which were redacted as to the victims’ names, the People’s opening statement, nor much of the trial, served to fully inform the defendant as to which individual complainants corresponded to the various counts of larceny.

Published on: January 8, 2013

The issue in this case is whether the superior court information was jurisdictionally defective because it charged a crime of a higher degree than any of the crimes charged in the felony complaint

by Stephen Bilkis

On November 22, 2006, defendant executed in open court a written waiver of his constitutional right to be prosecuted by indictment and consented to be prosecuted instead by a superior court information charging him with first-degree of grand larceny, which requires that the value of the property stolen exceed $ 1 million. More than three months earlier, defendant had been arrested and charged in a felony complaint with second-degree grand larceny, which requires that the value of the property stolen exceed $50,000, and second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument. The felony complaint charged that defendant was the head of accounts payable at Nina Footwear and had stolen approximately $700,000 from the company by issuing forged checks to himself and a codefendant. Notably, the felony complaint also alleged that defendant had admitted to the police that he had issued the checks in question and forged the signatures. Thereafter, as the minutes of the several proceedings in criminal court prior to November 22 establish, defense counsel and the prosecutor were negotiating a disposition.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said at the outset of the proceedings, defense counsel made clear that defendant had not wanted and did not want to be indicted by a jury. The court noted that a superior court information had been prepared and that the People would proceed to a jury if a disposition was not reached. After the court stated that the felony complaint charged defendant with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Nina Footwear, the prosecutor stated that “since the complaint was drafted, there has been a significant amount discovered on top of that. It is now over 1 million dollars.” The court then outlined on the record the disposition to which the parties had agreed: defendant would plead guilty to a superior court information charging him with first-degree grand larceny in exchange for a prison sentence of 2 1/3 to 7 years, pay some $ 100,000 in restitution and consent to the entry of judgment against him in the full amount of the theft, about $1.5 million.

Following discussions between the court and counsel, defendant signed a waiver of indictment form. As required by CPL 195.20, the written waiver of indictment contained a statement by defendant that he was aware that he had the right under the New York State Constitution to be prosecuted by a grand jury indictment, was waiving that right and consenting to be prosecuted by a superior court information, and that the information would be charging the offense specified in the written waiver and have the same force and effect as an indictment filed by the jury. Also as required by CPL 195.20, the written waiver was signed by defendant in open court in the presence of his attorney, and the consent of the District Attorney was endorsed thereon.

Published on: January 6, 2013

Defendant Contends He Was Improperly Sentenced in Grand Larceny Offense

by Stephen Bilkis

This is a proceeding brought pursuant to Article 78 of the CPLR to prohibit respondent Covington, a Justice of the Supreme Court, Bronx County from vacating petitioners’ convictions and the sentences imposed thereon in violation of Article 440 of the Criminal Procedure Law, and to prohibit respondents J.C. and P.G., District Attorney, Bronx County, from further prosecution of the petitioners on felony charges.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said on July 7, 1987 petitioners pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny in the third degree. All parties apparently thought that defendants were pleading guilty to an “E” felony, since grand larceny in the third degree is a “D” felony. Accordingly, defendant Wilson was sentenced as a predicate felon to 1 1/2 to 3 years in prison.

A Bronx Grand Larceny Lawyer said that, attempted grand larceny in the third degree became a “D” felony on November 1, 1986. At the time of the commission of the acts alleged in the indictment, May 14, 1986, grand larceny in the third degree was an “E” felony and attempted grand larceny in the third degree an “A” misdemeanor. Thus, the defendant was improperly sentenced to felony time that is 1 1/2 to 3 years in prison. A Bronx Grand Larceny Lawyer said that, petitioner W. commenced his sentence. Following the discovery of the error, the trial court vacated the sentence and conviction and reinstated the original felony charges. On February 23, 1988 this court granted a stay of the prosecution pending determination of this Article 78 proceeding.