People v Chiu Mei Lan Kwok
2008 NY Slip Op 04536 [51 AD3d 814]
May 13, 2008
Appellate Division, Second Department
As corrected through Wednesday, July 16, 2008


The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
ChiuMei Lan Kwok, Appellant.

[*1]Kevin Kerveng Tung, P.C., Flushing, N.Y., for appellant.

Richard A. Brown, District Attorney, Kew Gardens, N.Y. (John M. Castellano, JeanetteLifschitz, Jennifer Etkin, and Ayelet Sela of counsel), for respondent.

Appeal by the defendant, by permission, from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County(Blumenfeld, J.), dated September 8, 2006, which, without a hearing, denied her motion pursuantto CPL 440.10 to vacate a judgment of the same court rendered July 25, 2005, convicting her ofattempted falsifying business records in the second degree, upon her plea of guilty, and imposingsentence.

Ordered that the order is affirmed.

The defendant pleaded guilty to one count of attempted falsifying business records in thesecond degree (see Penal Law §§ 110.00, 175.05) in full satisfaction of amulticount indictment that originally contained a charge of enterprise corruption, a class B felony(see Penal Law § 460.20). She did not appeal from the judgment of conviction, butnow argues on appeal from the denial of her motion to vacate the judgment (see CPL440.10 [1]), that the Supreme Court should not have accepted her guilty plea because herstatements at the plea proceeding negated an element of the crime to which she pleaded guilty(see People v Lopez, 71 NY2d 662, 666 [1988]). She also argues that the court's failureto advise her of the possible ramifications of her guilty plea on her professional license renderedher plea unknowing. As the People argued in the Supreme Court and on appeal, facts sufficient tohave permitted adequate review of these claims on a direct appeal from the judgment appear onthe record of the plea proceedings. Consequently, absent a showing that the defendant's failure totake an appeal and raise these claims was justifiable, the defendant is barred from raising them ona motion to vacate the judgment (see CPL 440.10 [2] [c]). The [*2]defendant has made no such showing (cf. People v Lard, 45 AD3d 1331,1332-1333 [2007]). The defendant's remaining claim, regarding her counsel's alleged misadviceas to the effect of her guilty plea on her professional license, was refuted by the defendant's ownaffidavit, and, consequently, the Supreme Court properly rejected it without holding a hearing(see CPL 440.30 [4] [b]). Fisher, J.P., Covello, Angiolillo and Belen, JJ., concur.


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