Matter of State of New York v William W.
2013 NY Slip Op 01150 [103 AD3d 521]
February 21, 2013
Appellate Division, First Department
As corrected through Wednesday, March 27, 2013


In the Matter of State of New York,Respondent,
v
William W., Appellant.

[*1]Marvin Bernstein, Mental Hygiene Legal Service, New York (Namita Gupta ofcounsel), for appellant.

Eric T. Schneiderman, Attorney General, New York (Valerie Figueredo of counsel),for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Michael A. Gross, J.), entered on or aboutApril 12, 2011, which, upon a jury verdict that respondent suffers from a mentalabnormality, determined that respondent is a dangerous sex offender requiringconfinement, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The jury's verdict that respondent suffers from a mental abnormality (seeMental Hygiene Law § 10.03 [i]) was not against the weight of the evidence. Theexpert testimony offered by the State constituted clear and convincing evidence that atthe time of trial, respondent suffered from a disorder called frotteurism, which resulted inhis having serious difficulty controlling his conduct. The expert's conclusion wasproperly based not only on respondent's convictions of three counts of sexual abuse in1986 and one count of sexual assault in the first degree in 2003, but also on documents,reports, evaluations and other information spanning the years from his first offensethrough his incarceration. The absence of proof that he was accused or convicted ofsimilar crimes between the time of his 1986 offenses and the time of his 2003 offense, orin the years between the 2003 offense and the trial, need not be treated as negating ordisproving the diagnosis. Concur—Tom, J.P., Saxe, Moskowitz, Abdus-Salaamand Gische, JJ.


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