| People v Gonzalez |
| 2007 NY Slip Op 07719 [44 AD3d 790] |
| October 9, 2007 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Robert Gonzalez, Appellant. |
—[*1] Richard A. Brown, District Attorney, Kew Gardens, N.Y. (John M. Castellano and QuyndaL. Henry of counsel), for respondent.
Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Kron, J.),rendered April 7, 2005, convicting him of burglary in the second degree, criminal possession ofburglar's tools, criminal possession of stolen property in the fifth degree, disorderly conduct, andfailing to have a lamp on a bicycle in violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1236 (a),upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
The defendant's claim that various remarks made by the prosecutor during summation wereimproper and deprived the defendant of a fair trial is unpreserved for appellate review. Thedefendant failed to object to all but one of the allegedly improper remarks and, in the singleinstance where an objection was made, the court announced that it would give a curativeinstruction. The defendant thereafter sought no further relief from the trial court with respectthereto (see CPL 470.05 [2]; People v Salnave, 41 AD3d 872, 874 [2007]; People v Ahmed, 40 AD3d 869[2007]). In the circumstances of this case, we decline to invoke our interest of justice jurisdictionto review the defendant's unpreserved claims of prosecutorial misconduct (see CPL470.15 [3] [c]; [6] [a]).
We note that, with respect to the defendant's contention that the prosecutor referred to certaintelephone records not introduced into evidence, the prosecutor specifically asked defensecounsel, before the close of all of the evidence, to stipulate to the admission of the telephonerecords, indicating the prosecutor's readiness, in the alternative, to call a rebuttal witness from theNew York [*2]City Department of Corrections to authenticate therecords. Defense counsel thereafter asked to consult with the defendant with respect to thisrequest, but never objected to the admission, into evidence, of the telephone records. Moreover,defense counsel made extensive use of the records in an attempt to prove that any relationshipbetween the defendant and a codefendant developed only after their arrests in this case.
Finally, contrary to the defendant's contention, defense counsel's failure to object to theprosecutor's remarks and references, without more, did not amount to ineffective assistance ofcounsel under the circumstances presented, as the defendant failed "to demonstrate the absenceof strategic or other legitimate explanations for counsel's alleged shortcomings" (People v Taylor, 1 NY3d 174, 176[2003] [citations and internal quotation marks omitted]; People v Tonge, 93 NY2d 838,839-840 [1999]; cf. People v Lauderdale, 295 AD2d 539, 540-541 [2002]). Spolzino,J.P., Krausman, Fisher and Angiolillo, JJ., concur.