| People v Metellus |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 06923 [54 AD3d 601] |
| September 18, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v MarioMetellus, Appellant. |
—[*1] Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Jessica Slutsky of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Bruce Allen, J.), rendered April 20, 2007,convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of burglary in the third degree, and sentencing him, as asecond felony offender, to a term of 2½ to 5 years, unanimously affirmed.
The verdict was based on legally sufficient evidence and was not against the weight of theevidence (see People v Danielson, 9NY3d 342, 348-349 [2007]). There is no basis for disturbing the jury's determinationsconcerning credibility. Defendant's conduct clearly established that he entered the premises inquestion with the intent to steal.
The court properly exercised its discretion when it denied defendant's request to introduceextrinsic evidence of an allegedly prior inconsistent statement made by the complaining witness.The subject matter of the alleged inconsistency was essentially collateral, and it had little or noprobative value with regard to any issue other than general credibility (see People v Aska,91 NY2d 979, 981 [1998]; see also People v Duncan, 46 NY2d 74, 80-81 [1978], certdenied 442 US 910 [1979]). In any event, any error in the court's ruling was harmless. Sincedefendant never asserted a constitutional right to introduce this evidence, his presentconstitutional claim is unpreserved (People v Lane, 7 NY3d 888, 889 [2006]), and we decline to reviewit in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, we also reject it on the merits (see Cranev Kentucky, 476 US 683, 689-690 [1986]).
Since defendant assured the court that he had no problem with the use of a single interpreterfor both himself and the complaining witness, he failed to preserve his present claim thatdifferences between his language and that of the witness necessitated the use of separateinterpreters, and we decline to review it in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, wefind there is no evidence in the record that defendant was prejudiced in any way by the use of a[*2]single interpreter (see People v Cinero, 243 AD2d330 [1997], lv denied 91 NY2d 870 [1997]). Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P., Andrias,Saxe, Friedman and Acosta, JJ.