People v Camara
2007 NY Slip Op 07882 [44 AD3d 492]
October 18, 2007
Appellate Division, First Department
As corrected through Wednesday, December 12, 2007


The People of the State of New York,Respondent,
v
Fofana Camara, Also Known as Amadou Camera,Appellant.

[*1]Richard M. Greenberg, Office of the Appellate Defender, New York (Sara Gurwitch ofcounsel), and Cravath, Swaine and Moore LLP, New York City (Andrew E. Goldsmith ofcounsel), for appellant.

Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Susan Axelrod of counsel), forrespondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Robert H. Straus, J.), rendered June 10, 2005,convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of robbery in the second degree, and sentencing him to aterm of four years, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly declined to submit robbery in the third degree as a lesser included offense.In light of the integrated and unimpeached testimony of the victim and eyewitness that defendantwas aided by another man who physically restrained the victim, there was no reasonable view ofthe evidence, viewed most favorably to defendant, that defendant was guilty of only third-degreerobbery. We reject defendant's speculative interpretations of the evidence, including his assertionthat the police testimony suggested that there was only one participant in the crime. There was noreason for the jury to credit the victim and witness in general, but conclude that they invented theinvolvement of a second robber (see People v Negron, 91 NY2d 788 [1998]; People v Tucker, 41 AD3d 210[2007]). Defendant's hearsay and Confrontation Clause arguments are unpreserved and wedecline to review them in the interest of justice. Were we to review these claims, we would findthat the evidence at issue was not received for its truth, [*2]butfor legitimate nonhearsay purposes.

We perceive no basis for reducing the sentence. Concur—Nardelli, J.P., Gonzalez,Sweeny, McGuire and Kavanagh, JJ.


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