People v. Milan

2016 NY Slip Op 8598, 145 A.D.3d 588, 42 N.Y.S.3d 796

Opinion

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Richard D. Carruthers, J.), rendered February 19, 2014, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first and third degrees, and sentencing him to an aggregate term of eight years, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied defendant’s suppression motion. The record supports the court’s finding that defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in duffel bags after he left them on the ground in a public place and walked away in an obvious effort to distance himself from the bags (see People v Ramirez-Portoreal, 88 NY2d 99 [1996]; People v Sosa, 246 AD2d 387 [1st Dept 1998], lv denied 91 NY2d 945 [1998]), notwithstanding that he later admitted that the bags were his. The record also supports the court’s alternative finding that, based on a chain of suspicious circumstances, including defendant’s walking away from the bags, and his false and evasive answers (see e.g. People v Wigfall, 295 AD2d 222 [1st Dept 2002], lv denied 99 NY2d 50 [2002]), the police were in reasonable fear for their safety and were justified in inspecting the bags as a safety measure (see People v Moore, 32 NY2d 67, 71 [1973], cert denied 414 US 1011 [1973]).

Concur—Friedman, J.P., Moskow-itz, Webber, Kahn and Gesmer, JJ.