Matter of Vidal v Goord
2008 NY Slip Op 01263 [48 AD3d 860]
February 14, 2008
Appellate Division, Third Department
As corrected through Wednesday, April 16, 2008


In the Matter of Joseph Vidal, Appellant, v Glenn S. Goord, asCommissioner of Correctional Services, et al., Respondents.

[*1]Joseph Vidal, Comstock, appellant pro se.

Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General, Albany (Martin A. Hotvet of counsel), forrespondents.

Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Bradley, J.), entered September 27, 2006 inAlbany County, which dismissed petitioner's application, in a proceeding pursuant to CPLRarticle 78, to review a determination of respondent Central Office Review Committee denyingpetitioner's grievance.

Petitioner, an inmate, commenced this CPLR article 78 proceeding to challenge the denial ofhis grievance requesting that he be allowed to send to his family 668 postage stamps that werepermanently confiscated from him. Supreme Court dismissed the petition, and petitioner nowappeals.

We affirm. Although the Department of Correctional Services Directive No. 4910 § VI(D) sets forth options for the disposal of contraband, including allowing inmates to mail certainitems home when appropriate, the options also include storage or destruction. The determinationthat petitioner is not allowed to choose among those options is not an arbitrary and capriciousinterpretation of that directive (seeMatter of Fullwood v Lamy, 28 AD3d 1016, 1016 [2006]; Matter of Abdul-Matiyn vCommissioner of State of N.Y. Dept. of Correctional Servs., 252 AD2d 754, 755 [1998]),especially considering that the stamps at issue, which exceeded $20 in value in violation of aprison disciplinary rule, were confiscated from petitioner as part of a penalty imposed in a tier IIIdisciplinary hearing in which he was found to have obtained them by means of an unauthorizedexchange. Petitioner's remaining contentions, including his claim of [*2]selective enforcement, have been reviewed and are without merit.

Mercure, J.P., Carpinello, Rose, Kane and Malone Jr., JJ., concur. Ordered that the judgmentis affirmed, without costs.


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