People v. DeVecchio

17 Misc. 3d 990
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 10, 2007
StatusPublished

This text of 17 Misc. 3d 990 (People v. DeVecchio) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. DeVecchio, 17 Misc. 3d 990 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 2007).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Gtjstin L. Reichbach, J.

Pursuant to People v Molineux (168 NY 264 [1901]) and its progeny, while a person on trial charged with a p£jrticular crime may not be shown to be guilty by evidence showing he has committed other crimes, evidence of other crimes is admissible when such evidence tends to establish the particular crime on trial by demonstrating motive, intent, the absence of mistake or accident, a common scheme or plan embracing the commission of two or more crimes so related to each other that proof of one tends to establish the other, or tends to establish the identity of the person charged with commission of the crime on trial. The District Attorney, pursuant to People v Ventimiglia (52 NY2d 350 [1981]), by written request of August 30, 2007, seeks to introduce at the defendant’s trial on an indictment charging him with four counts of intentional homicide, a long litany of alleged prior bad acts claiming they are competent to prove these specific charges. The People claim that such evidence is either directly relevant to or probative of one or more of the elements of the charged crime, as well as defendant’s identity, motive and intentional participation as an accomplice of Gregory Scarpa Sr. in these four murders.

The court would initially note that the People rely on the motive exception under Molineux to present evidence on certain prior bad acts and/or uncharged crimes. As an example under this exception, notwithstanding that receiving monies is not an element of the crime of murder, allegations that the defendant received cash payments from Scarpa are relevant on this issue. It bears on the question of why a supervising agent of the FBI would be providing confidential law enforcement intelligence to an organized crime killer. It also “completes the narrative” regarding these transactions. (People v Crossland, 251 AD2d 509 [2d Dept 1998]; People v Dodson, 243 AD2d 644 [2d Dept 1997].) However, the People’s further reliance on the grounds of identity and intent as additional bases for its Molineux application seems misplaced. Identifying the defendant as the perpetrator of other tjad acts has little bearing on whether or not the de[992]*992fendant gave the information specifically charged in this case. There is no unique modus operandi tying these crimes together. What does tie them together, as discussed at great length below, is that they’re all allegedly part of an ongoing corrupt criminal relationship in which the defendant provided confidential law enforcement intelligence to Scarpa, including the intelligence that led to the four murders charged in this indictment. As to intent, this is not the type of case where evidence is admissible because the act itself is ambiguous and is not, standing on its own, necessarily indicative of criminal intent. Unlike the uncertainty of criminal intent in, for instance, the act of passing counterfeit money, providing secret police intelligence information to a Mafia murderer, purposefully revealing information that these individuals are potentially informants or the location of rivals, directly permits an inference of intent by the very act itself. Other bad act evidence is not needed to establish the criminal intent involved in such illicit revelations.

The court is constrained to note that the People have, in connection with their Molineux application, failed to explicitly raise the most persuasive basis for the admission of many of these purported bad acts: that all of these acts were part of a common plan involving the commission of multiple crimes all related to an ongoing criminal agreement to provide confidential police information to Scarpa.

The defense raises five general grounds for the exclusion of all of the alleged bad acts proffered by the District Attorney. One or more of these grounds form the basis for the defense’s specific objections to each item offered by the People. Before discussing the application of each of these objections to the specific bad acts the District Attorney seeks to present, some general analysis is appropriate.

The defense’s first ground for exclusion is that many of these allegations of prior bad acts implicate evidence which it claims is derived from the defendant’s immunized testimony. Despite this conclusory defense assertion, such a finding is a question of law for the court to make based on a complete trial record.

The defense next contends that the District Attorney’s desire to introduce evidence about defendant’s protection of Gregory Scarpa and his failure to terminate Gregory Scarpa as an informant implicates defendant’s “federal immunity” defense. The court notes that this “federal immunity defense” was one of the bases on which the defendant sought to remove this prosecution to federal court: an application that was denied by the [993]*993Federal District Court. A claim of federal immunity is to provide immunity from a state court prosecution for an act committed in the performance of a federal officer’s official duties. As the district court judge noted, there can be no claim that the four murders alleged were committed in the course of the performance of official duties. Deliberately providing confidential police intelligence for the purpose of eliminating possible informants and rivals, revealing law enforcement surveillance and leaking confidential documents are not part of any federal duties. The act of protecting Scarpa or refusing to terminate him are not the acts for which defendant faces prosecution. Such evidence, however, may be relevant as circumstantial evidence of the ongoing criminal relationship between the defendant and Scarpa to provide confidential intelligence. This issue is discussed at greater length below.

The claim that the defendant failed to reveal criminal activity he knew that Scarpa, his informant, was involved in, and his refusal to terminate him as an informant pursuant to administrative guidelines, is not directly probative of the claim that the defendant purposefully provided secret intelligence to aid and abet his informant in murdering the four people as charged in the indictment. A law enforcement agent can violate administrative regulations regarding relations with informants and still not enter into a criminal relationship to provide confidential police information, knowing it will result in murder. That the defendant may have stepped over the line in protecting his informant, or even violated administrative regulations in failing to terminate him, is not the legal equivalent nor probative of affirmatively joining forces with Scarpa and providing confidential intelligence so that his informant could murder these people. However, while such actions are not directly probative of the defendant’s commission of the offenses for which he is charged, it is relevant circumstantial evidence tending to establish the ongoing criminal relationship and a common plan to commit multiple crimes so related to each other that proof of one tends to establish commission of the other. It is true that certain of the items proffered by the District Attorney have little relevance to the charges presented and can be proffered only for the purpose of demonstrating propensity. Such items, of course, will be precluded.

Next the defendant objects that the evidence being offered is both misleading and contradicted by other evidence. That, of course, is a question not of admissibility but of the credibility [994]*994and the weight to be afforded such evidence: a determination to be made by the finder of fact.

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Related

People v. . Grutz
105 N.E. 842 (New York Court of Appeals, 1914)
People v. . Duffy
105 N.E. 839 (New York Court of Appeals, 1914)
People v. . Molineux
61 N.E. 286 (New York Court of Appeals, 1901)
People v. Fiore
312 N.E.2d 174 (New York Court of Appeals, 1974)
People v. Ventimiglia
420 N.E.2d 59 (New York Court of Appeals, 1981)
People v. Dodson
243 A.D.2d 644 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1997)
People v. Crossland
251 A.D.2d 509 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1998)

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Bluebook (online)
17 Misc. 3d 990, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-devecchio-nysupct-2007.