| People v Nunez |
| 2017 NY Slip Op 00732 [147 AD3d 423] |
| February 2, 2017 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
[*1]
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Roberto Nunez, Appellant. |
Robert S. Dean, Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Susan H. Salomon of counsel),for appellant.
Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Susan Gliner of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Thomas Farber, J.), rendered November 26,2013, as amended January 30, 2014, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of three counts eachof murder in the first and second degrees, and sentencing him, as a second violent felonyoffender, to an aggregate term of life without parole, unanimously affirmed.
Defendant's legal sufficiency claim is unpreserved and we decline to review it in the interestof justice. As an alternative holding, we reject it on the merits. We also find that the verdict wasnot against the weight of the evidence (see People v Danielson, 9 NY3d 342, 348-349 [2007]). Defendant'sexculpatory testimony did not place the evidence in "equipoise," as defendant asserts. On thecontrary, the jury could have reasonably found defendant's testimony incredible and disregardedit, while instead accepting the People's compelling circumstantial case.
The prosecutor's remarks in summation fell within the broad bounds of rhetorical commentpermissible in closing argument (see People v Galloway, 54 NY2d 396, 399 [1981]). ThePeople were entitled to argue that their case was strong, that defendant's testimony wasincredible, and that defendant's status as an interested witness was one of the factors affecting hiscredibility. Nothing in the People's phrasing of these arguments was so inflammatory as towarrant reversal.
We perceive no basis for reducing the sentence. Concur—Sweeny, J.P., Acosta,Moskowitz, Kapnick and Kahn, JJ.