| Matter of Briana A. |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 03836 [50 AD3d 1560] |
| April 25, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, Fourth Department |
| In the Matter of Briana A., an Infant. Wyoming County Departmentof Social Services, Respondent; Alvin V., Jr., Appellant. |
—[*1] Jane E. Monaghan, Warsaw, for petitioner-respondent. Teresa Kowalczyk, Law Guardian, Warsaw, for Briana A.
Appeal from an order of the Family Court, Wyoming County (Michael F. Griffith, J.),entered June 13, 2007 in a proceeding pursuant to Family Court Act article 10. The order, amongother things, adjudged that respondent had abused and neglected his child.
It is hereby ordered that the order so appealed from is unanimously affirmed without costs.
Memorandum: On appeal from an order adjudicating his child to be an abused and neglectedchild, respondent father contends that Family Court erred in relying upon the child's unswornout-of-court statements in granting the petitions because those statements were not corroborated.We reject that contention (see generally Family Ct Act § 1046 [a] [vi]; Matterof Nicole V., 71 NY2d 112, 117-118 [1987], rearg denied 71 NY2d 890 [1988]).Although a child's "repetitive statements to various persons do not constitute sufficientcorroboration" (Matter of Kalifa K.,37 AD3d 1180, 1181 [2007]), "[a]ny other evidence tending to support the reliability of theprevious statements" may constitute sufficient corroboration (Family Ct Act § 1046 [a][vi]). Here, the corroboration requirement was met by "the child's age-inappropriate knowledgeof sexual conduct" (Matter of Yorimar K.-M., 309 AD2d 1148, 1149 [2003]), which"demonstrated specific knowledge of sexual activity" (Nicole V., 71 NY2d at 122).Present—Centra, J.P., Lunn, Peradotto, Green and Pine, JJ.