| People v Bamisile |
| 2009 NY Slip Op 07334 [66 AD3d 507] |
| October 15, 2009 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Adebola Bamisile, Appellant. |
—[*1] Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Laurie A. McGuire of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Rena K. Uviller, J.), rendered March 26,2008, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of criminal possession of a controlledsubstance in the fourth degree, and sentencing him to a term of five years' probation,unanimously affirmed.
The court properly denied defendant's suppression motion. There is no basis for disturbingthe court's credibility determinations, in which it accepted the officer's version of the incident.The record fails to establish that defendant was subjected to, or directed to perform uponhimself, a body cavity search or any other type of bodily examination for which there areadditional requirements beyond the fact of a lawful arrest (see People v Hall, 10 NY3d 303, 311 [2008]). After lawfullyarresting defendant, an officer patted defendant down and felt, through defendant's clothing, ahard object in defendant's "buttocks area." The officer asked defendant to remove the object, anddefendant complied by simply reaching into his pants and taking out a bag of cocaine withoutundressing or even opening his belt. The hearing evidence does not establish that the bag wasconcealed in or protruding from defendant's rectum, or that it was even between his buttockscheeks. Contrary to defendant's argument, we find that a meaningful distinction can be drawnbetween an object in an arrestee's rectum or buttocks cheeks (see People v Maye, 12 NY3d 731 [2009]), and an object tuckedinto an arrestee's pants in the [*2]vicinity of the buttocks, whichwould be comparable to an object in a back pocket (see People v Placek, 58 AD3d 538 [2009], lv denied 12NY3d 858 [2009]). Concur—Gonzalez, P.J., Friedman, Moskowitz, Renwick andDeGrasse, JJ.