People v Basciano
2008 NY Slip Op 07076 [54 AD3d 637]
September 25, 2008
Appellate Division, First Department
As corrected through Wednesday, October 29, 2008


The People of the State of New York,Respondent,
v
Steven Basciano, Appellant.

[*1]James Kousouros, Kew Gardens, for appellant.

Robert T. Johnson, District Attorney, Bronx (Cynthia A. Carlson of counsel), forrespondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Michael A. Gross, J.), rendered June 17, 2007,convicting defendant, after a jury verdict, of assault in the second degree, and sentencing him to aterm of 2½ years, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly granted the People's request to submit second-degree assault under PenalLaw § 120.05 (1) (causing serious physical injury) to the jury as a lesser included offenseof first-degree assault under Penal Law § 120.10 (1) (causing serious physical injury bymeans of a dangerous instrument). There was a reasonable view of the evidence (see People vNegron, 91 NY2d 788 [1998]) that defendant seriously injured the victim by means of hisfist, rather than by means of an unidentified hard object as set forth in the indictment. Indeed,such a view was advanced by defendant in his cross-examination of the People's witnesses. Sincethe indictment necessarily contained the lesser included offense, there is no merit to defendant'sarguments that the court constructively amended the indictment or that the People impermissiblychanged their theory of prosecution (see People v Gouyagadosh, 295 AD2d 246, 247[2002]; People v Udzinski, 146 AD2d 245, 254 [1989], lv denied 74 NY2d 853[1989]). Concur—Tom, J.P., Mazzarelli, Friedman, Williams and Moskowitz, JJ.


NYPTI Decisions © 2026 is a project of New York Prosecutors Training Institute (NYPTI) made possible by leveraging the work we've done providing online research and tools to prosecutors.

NYPTI would like to thank New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, New York State Senate's Open Legislation Project, New York State Unified Court System, New York State Law Reporting Bureau and Free Law Project for their invaluable assistance making this project possible.

Install the free RECAP extensions to help contribute to this archive. See https://free.law/recap/ for more information.