| Matter of Alston C. (Frederick C.) |
| 2010 NY Slip Op 08482 [78 AD3d 1660] |
| November 19, 2010 |
| Appellate Division, Fourth Department |
| In the Matter of Alston C. Cattaraugus County Department of SocialServices, Respondent; Frederick C., Appellant. |
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Appeal from an order of the Family Court, Cattaraugus County (Michael L. Nenno, J.), enteredJune 15, 2009 in a proceeding pursuant to Family Court Act article 10. The order, among other things,adjudged that the subject child was abused and placed the child in the custody of petitioner until thecompletion of the next permanency hearing.
It is hereby ordered that the order so appealed from is unanimously affirmed without costs.
Memorandum: Respondent father contends on appeal that Family Court erred in relying upon hischild's unsworn out-of-court statements in granting the petition seeking, inter alia, an adjudication thathis child is abused, inasmuch as those statements were not corroborated. We reject that contention."Any other evidence tending to support the reliability of the [child's] previous statements. . . shall be sufficient corroboration" (Family Ct Act § 1046 [a] [vi]; seegenerally Matter of Nicole V., 71 NY2d 112, 117-118 [1987]). Here, there was amplecorroboration of the child's statements, i.e., statements made by the father to an investigator employedby the New York State Police as well as the testimony of a psychologist who determined that thecontextual details of the child's statements were consistent with a description of actual events. Therecord does not support the further contentions of the father that he did not receive effective assistanceof counsel (see generally Matter of Howard vMcLoughlin, 64 AD3d 1147, 1148 [2009]), and that the determination is not supported bythe requisite preponderance of the evidence (see Family Ct Act § 1046 [b] [i];Matter of Tammie Z., 66 NY2d 1, 3 [1985]). We have reviewed the father's remainingcontentions and conclude that they are without merit. Present—Smith, J.P., Lindley, Sconiers,Pine and Gorski, JJ.