People v. Presley
This text of People v. Presley (People v. Presley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
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Bureau Thomas J.K. Smith, State Reporter
People v Presley
2026 NY Slip Op 04012
June 25, 2026
Appellate Division, Third Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
This decision is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.
The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
John M. Presley, Appellant.
Decided and Entered:June 25, 2026
CR-24-0606
Calendar Date: May 12, 2026
Before: Garry, P.J., Pritzker, Reynolds Fitzgerald, Powers And Corcoran, JJ.
Veronica Reed, Schenectady, for appellant.
Robert A. Mascari, District Attorney, Wampsville (J. Scott Porter of counsel), for respondent.
Corcoran, J.
Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Madison County (Rhonda Youngs, J.), rendered February 8, 2024, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crime of predatory sexual assault against a child.
In October 2022, defendant and two codefendants were jointly charged by sealed indictment with various crimes against minor family members, including, as relevant to defendant, predatory sexual assault against a child (see Penal Law former § 130.96) and course of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree (see Penal Law § 130.75 [1] [former (a)]). The People declared their readiness for trial and filed a certificate of compliance (hereinafter COC) on December 2, 2022, and later supplemented their COC and declaration of readiness on August 31, 2023. Although defendant moved to dismiss the indictment on statutory speedy trial grounds based on the belated disclosure, County Court did not decide the motion. A jury trial of defendant and one codefendant proceeded after the other codefendant pleaded guilty and testified for the People. Defendant was convicted of predatory sexual assault against a child and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 20 years to life. Defendant appeals.
Defendant asserts that his conviction is not supported by legally sufficient evidence and that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence, citing certain inconsistencies in the victim's testimony, the absence of corroborating evidence, and medical evidence arguably inconsistent with the alleged abuse. Although defendant moved to dismiss at the close of the People's proof, he did not articulate a specific legal sufficiency argument. As a result, his challenge to the legal sufficiency of the evidence is unpreserved for appellate review (see People v Noble, 244 AD3d 1499, 1500 [3d Dept 2025]). However, defendant's weight of the evidence challenge does not require preservation (see People v Ferrara, 243 AD3d 962, 963 [3d Dept 2025], lv denied 45 NY3d 945 [2026]). "[O]ur assessment of defendant's challenge to the weight of the evidence requires that we confirm whether the People proved each element beyond a reasonable doubt, and we do so while considering the evidence in a neutral light with deference to the jury's resolutions on witness credibility" (People v Baez, 232 AD3d 1044, 1045 [3d Dept 2024] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]). Here, the jury was instructed that "[a] person is guilty of predatory sexual assault against a child when, being [18] years old or more, he or she commits the crime of . . . course of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree . . . and the victim is less than [13] years old" (Penal Law former § 130.96). As further charged to the jury, "[a] person is guilty of course of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree when, over a period of time not less than three months in duration[,] . . . he or she engages in two or more acts of sexual conduct, which includes at least one act of sexual intercourse, oral sexual [*2]conduct, anal sexual conduct or aggravated sexual contact, with a child less than [11] years old" (Penal Law § 130.75 [1] [former (a)]).
The victim, who testified that she was born in 2007, regularly lived in the same household as defendant from 2012 through 2016. During that time, defendant sexually abused her "every few months" when she was between five and nine years old. The abuse consisted of acts that satisfied the statutory criteria for the crimes charged. She disclosed the abuse after she was placed in foster care. Because defendant threatened to kill the victim if she disclosed the abuse, she did not reveal it when she was questioned by Child Protective Services (hereinafter CPS) during 2015 and 2017 police investigations. She also denied to her pediatrician that she was being touched inappropriately. During cross-examination, defense counsel elicited some inconsistencies between the victim's grand jury testimony and her trial testimony.
The People called two witnesses related to defendant, who described his prior bad acts, specifically that defendant repeatedly raped them when they were about the same age as the victim. One witness also testified that her own young daughter disclosed to her that defendant "hurt" her. The People also called a psychotherapist in the field of child sexual abuse, who described how prolonged abuse impedes a child's ability to remember, timely disclose and consistently detail the abuse. A CPS investigator involved with the family between 2012 through 2016 testified that the victim was placed in foster care in 2015 amid concerns that she was "sexually acting out."
The codefendant called the victim's pediatrician, who testified that his 2015 examination of the victim revealed anatomic findings that could be inconsistent with sexual abuse, though he ultimately could not exclude that possibility based upon his examination findings alone. He also testified that the victim denied any history of abuse when he examined her.
Based on the foregoing, a different verdict would not have been unreasonable had the jury rejected the victim's uncorroborated account and viewed the medical evidence as inconsistent with her allegations. Still, deferring to the jury's credibility determinations while weighing the proof in a neutral light, we find that the verdict is supported by the weight of the evidence. The victim's testimony established the essential elements of predatory sexual assault. Defense counsel thoroughly explored certain perceived inconsistencies, which did not render her testimony "inherently unbelievable or incredible as a matter of law" (People v Harris, 246 AD3d 1300, 1303 [3d Dept 2026] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]; see People v Sharlow, 217 AD3d 1120, 1122 [3d Dept 2023], lv denied 40 NY3d 1013 [2023]). Nor did the pediatrician's testimony foreclose the possibility of abuse. The jury was aided by expert testimony explaining that child victims of prolonged sexual abuse often delay disclosure [*3]and may provide incomplete or inconsistent accounts over time. Consistent with that expert opinion, a CPS investigator testified that the victim exhibited sexualized behavior during the relevant time despite her silence.
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People v. Presley, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-presley-nyappdiv-2026.