People v. Williams
Opinion of the Court
—Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Goldstein, J.), rendered September 12, 1989, convicting him of robbery in the first degree and robbery in the second degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
Contrary to the defendant’s contention, we find that the court properly denied his motion to preclude the testimony of an officer, who identified the defendant after he was arrested,
Moreover, the admission of and various references to the officer’s testimony regarding the defendant’s alleged pointing of a gun at him during the pursuit, for which the defendant was not charged in the indictment, did not constitute reversible error. This evidence was integral in linking the defendant to the gun he had purportedly used during the robbery. The gun was subsequently found in a yard into which the officer had observed the defendant enter minutes before he was apprehended (see, People v Ventimiglia, 52 NY2d 350, 361; People v Vails, 43 NY2d 364, 369). In addition, any potential prejudice that the defendant might have incurred from the admission of this testimony was minimized by the court’s detailed instruction during its jury charge that this evidence was relevant to the defendant’s consciousness of guilt. Rosenblatt, J. P., Lawrence, O’Brien and Copertino, JJ., concur.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.