Articles Posted in Queens

This case involves the plaintiffs, the People of the State of New York versus the defendant, Edward Cicciari. The case is being heard in the Criminal Term of the Supreme Court of the state of New York in Queens County.

A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said the counsel for the defendant is seeking an inspection of the minutes presented to the Grand Jury that resulted in the defendant being indicted for first degree rape, first degree sodomy, first degree burglary, aggravated sexual abuse, attempted burglary, criminal mischief, and resisting arrest.

The defendant is seeking that a number of counts on the indictment be dismissed based on the fact that the indictment was not founded on competent and sufficient legal evidence.

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The Facts:

Defendant has been found guilty of assault in the second degree, with intent to rape. He is now before the court for sentencing.

A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said that a “prior offense” Information has been filed by the District Attorney which alleges that the defendant is now a second felony offender by reason of the fact that he was previously convicted, after trial, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, of three crimes, viz.: aggravated assault and battery, assault with intent to ravish and rape.

In August 1991, two police officers from Yonkers, New York were sent to investigate a reported rape and robbery which occurred in an apartment building. A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said the woman who claimed to have been raped told the detectives that she was raped at knifepoint. She gave the description of her attacker to the police including the attacker’s physical traits such as his height, approximate age, his body build, the clothes he wore, his race and even the way he smelled.

The detectives went to the basement of the building where the garbage chute emptied out into a dumpster and found clothes similar to the clothes described as worn by the attacker of the woman. A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said near the dumpster there were also found some surgical gloves, a white panty hose tied in knots and a knife.

The police detectives asked the residents of the building if they knew any person in the building who fit the description given by the woman who was raped and they were led to the apartment of the accused.

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The Facts:

According to a New York Sex Crimes Lawyer, the defendant was charged with robbery, larceny, assault (two counts), endangering the welfare of a child, and sexual abuse in the third degree; a six-count indictment on criminal law violations.

As the crimes were allegedly committed on 26 September 1967, the prosecution was under the new Penal Law, which was enacted in 1965, effective as of 1 September 1967.

The accused, a bachelor of approximately thirty-seven years of age met an incoming plane at LaGuardia Airport, from which disembarked a twenty-year-old petite, attractive second-year student woman, an unworldly girl, evidently unacquainted with New York City and the sophisticated city ways, a girl who proved to be, as indicated by the testimony, incredibly gullible, trusting and naive.

A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said the testimony indicates that the accused struck up a conversation with her, posing as a psychologist doing a magazine article and using a name that was not his, inducing the woman to answer questions for an interview.

The evidence further shows that the accused invited the complainant woman to accompany him in an automobile to the Grand Central Station in Manhattan. They were accompanied in the automobile by other persons, some of whom were introduced by the accused as colleagues on a professional basis. There were numerous detours before they found their way to the Grand Central Station. First, they were taken to an apartment on the east side where some of the parties were left behind.

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The Facts:

Two male persons, defendants, forcibly abducted the victim (of the assaults) in an automobile. While being carried away in the car, the victim was given a choice of either participating in sodomy or submitting to rape but refused either alternative. A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said after having been slapped around and frustrated in an attempt to escape, she was raped by each defendant, in turn, while the other held a knife-point to her throat and threatened to cut her if she didn’t stop screaming. Nevertheless, she resisted, but in vain. She was not examined by a doctor until 10 August 1965 and the police were not notified until 12 August 1965. She made no immediate disclosure to her parents although, within a day or two after the event, she told a neighbor about it. Other than the victim’s own testimony, there is no evidence that she was abducted by anyone, or that she was in the company of these defendants on the occasion in question or that at or about the time of the occurrences narrated by her, she bore visible marks of recent physical violence or rape.

A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said the defendants were apprehended and questioned but denied having been in the girl’s company on the evening in question and specifically denied the charges made. There was no evidence that any knife was found or that either of the defendants had been known to possess one.

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In the early 1970’s the rape law in New York required that the complaint of the victim had to be corroborated by a third person in order to obtain a conviction. A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said this seems archaic these days and made it almost impossible for a rape victim to obtain justice against her attacker. In one case of a woman who was walking home from the bus stop late at night, a man with a knife followed her and forced her into an abandoned stairwell. He told her that he was going to rape her and forced her to undress while holding the knife to her throat and face. Once she was disrobed, he held his cigarette lighter up to her lady parts. She felt the heat from the lighter and fought to get away. He threatened her again at which time she stopped resisting for fear that he would cut her.

A neighbor in the area called the police because he saw the woman get shoved into the stairwell and reported that a robbery was in progress at that location. A police car with two officers responded to the area. The officers found the man still raping the woman. They arrested him and collected the cigarette lighter and the knife as evidence. They also noticed that the woman had a cut on her cheek from the knife, just below her right eye. The woman was transported to the hospital where a doctor performed an examination. He noticed that the victim had a cut on her chin as well and that there were physical signs that the rape was culminated.

At the trial of the man, the judge did not inform the jury that corroboration was required to convict on the crime of rape. A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said the defense filed a motion to overturn the guilty verdict that the man received based on that fact. The defense claimed that it was a fatal error to not instruct the jury that corroboration was necessary. Their contention being that since no one saw whether the woman agreed to have sex with him or not, minus corroboration, the jury would have been unable to convict him of rape.

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On March 1982, a police officer assisted in the arrest of a man after a search of his rented car. The search was allegedly based on probable cause. Drug paraphernalia amounting to $8,605 was found on the floor behind the driver’s seat and several suitcases of marijuana were also found in the trunk of the car. The police officer states that the man confessed that he was a runner from Florida who brought marijuana to the New York City area for sale and returned to Florida with the proceeds of the sales. A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said the man was arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges but was permitted to plead guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to a conditional discharge.

The property clerk contends that the $8,605 is the proceeds of or derived from the sale of a controlled substance and is therefore subject to forfeiture pursuant to administrative code. The code provides that where moneys or property have been unlawfully obtained or stolen or are the proceeds of crime or derived through crime or derived through the use or sale of property prohibited by law from being held, used or sold, a person who so obtained, received or derived any such moneys or property, or who so used, employed, sold or held any such moneys or property or suffered the same to be used, employed, sold or held, or who was a participant or accomplice in any such act, or a person who derives his claim in any manner from or through any such person, shall not be consider to be the lawful claimant entitled to any such moneys or property.

The property clerk also argues that the assignee of the man cannot possibly meet his burden under administrative code and that the money should therefore be declared to be forfeited. A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said the subdivision states that a claimant of property, who derives his title by assignment, must establish that his assignor had a lawful title in such money and lawfully obtained possession thereof and that such money was held and used in a lawful manner.

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A drug dealer in New York contacted a Lebanese courier who would be bringing ten kilograms of heroin into the United States. The drug dealer’s business constituted street-dealing heroin in Brooklyn.

He agreed to meet the Lebanese courier in Boston, Massachusetts. A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said that in exchange for the ten kilograms of heroin, the Brooklyn drug dealer agreed to pay a courier fee of $120,000.00. He withdrew money from his bank in New York to complete the sum he needed to pay for the courier fee. He then purchased round trip tickets to Boston and back to New York for his three people: his girlfriend, his right-hand man and a pharmacologist they nicknamed “the professor.” He also made hotel reservations for his people at the Ramada Inn in Boston.

The drug dealer instructed his girlfriend to bring the money; his right-hand man will speak with the Lebanese courier and bring a sample of the drugs to “the professor’ who would be in a separate room at the hotel to test the drugs. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the plan was for them to plane into Boston, complete the deal in Boston, test the drugs in Boston and fly directly back to New York with the drugs where the drugs would be repacked and sold on the streets.

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