Robbery

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 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 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 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.

Published on: May 11, 2012

Court Decides if Defendant’s Sentences Should Run Concurrently

by Stephen Bilkis

At approximately noon on July 12, 1982, defendant savagely attacked a man in his apartment. After defendant took certain items of jewelry from the man, defendant’s accomplice bound the man, and defendant slashed the man’s neck twice with a knife. The perpetrators then foraged around the apartment for loot. The defendant returned to check the man’s pulse, and stabbed him several times in the back of the neck. After a final search of the apartment, the accomplice, an acquaintance of the man, told defendant to “make sure”. The defendant returned and stabbed the man twice in the chest. The perpetrators then placed two mattresses over the man, set them afire, and left. The man miraculously survived, due to a blood clot in his jugular vein.

Subsequently, the defendant was arrested and, following a jury trial, was found guilty of attempted murder in the second degree, two counts of robbery in the first degree, robbery in the second degree, two counts of assault in the first degree, and two counts of burglary in the first degree.

The sentencing court found that the attempted murder occurred after the robbery and burglary were completed.

Published on: May 10, 2012

Robbery Defendant Claims Circumstantial Evidence

by Stephen Bilkis

The accused man and his accomplice as well as the two female complainants boarded a subway train at 125th Street. Once on the train, the accused man and his accomplice sat down near, although not immediately beside, each other and engaged in a conversation.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said that thereafter, the accomplice began to verbally harass the complainants. The accused man did not join in and in fact eventually moved by himself to a different subway car. When the train arrived at Zerega Avenue, the complainants got off followed by the accused man’s accomplice. It was shortly after leaving the train that the complainants were accosted on the subway platform by the accomplice and robbed of various possessions at knifepoint. One of the complainants testified that while the accomplice relieved her and her companion of their possessions, the accused, who had apparently also exited the train at Zarega Avenue, stood some 65 to 75 feet away; he was situated at the top of the stairwell providing access to and from the platform. While the first complainant at first claimed to have observed the accused glancing alternately down the stairs and in the direction of the ongoing robbery, she later stated that the accused was simply standing at the top of the stairs–that she could not see his face and that she did not witness any communication between the accused and the accomplice while the robbery was in progress.

Once the robbery was complete, the accomplice joined the accused and the two fled the station together. A short time later, when they were apprehended in the vicinity of the station, the accomplice was still in possession of the items taken from the complainants; the accused, on the other hand, had no stolen property and disclaimed any relationship with the accomplice, stating that he don’t know the guy and he was just asking him for directions.

Published on: May 9, 2012

Judge Acquits Man Found Guilty by Jury

by Stephen Bilkis

On August 11, 1980, a man was walking outside his apartment. Two men who also frequented the apartment building where he lived came up to him and talked to him. Thinking that they were just being friendly, he stopped to chat.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said one of the men blocked his way and the other asked him for his money. When he said he didn’t have any money on him, the man grabbed his hand and forcibly took the ring he was wearing on his finger.

The two men immediately turned and left the man. He reported the robbery to the police. He gave their names to the police and their description and they were arrested. They were charged with robbery in the second degree. The indictment alleged that the two men acted in cooperation with one another and being physically present at the same time and forcibly stole the ring from the man.