| People v Bartlett |
| 2017 NY Slip Op 02478 [148 AD3d 1471] |
| March 30, 2017 |
| Appellate Division, Third Department |
[*1]
| The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v Robert A.Bartlett, Jr., Appellant. |
Susan Patnode, Rural Law Center of New York, Castleton (Cynthia Feathers of counsel), forappellant, and appellant pro se.
Mary E. Rain, District Attorney, Canton (Matthew L. Peabody of counsel), forrespondent.
Peters, P.J. Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of St. Lawrence County (Richards,J.), rendered September 28, 2015, convicting defendant upon his plea of guilty of the crimes ofwelfare fraud in the third degree and offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree (threecounts).
Defendant was charged in an indictment with welfare fraud in the third degree and offering afalse instrument for filing in the first degree (three counts). He thereafter pleaded guilty ascharged and his plea included the waiver of the right to appeal. County Court sentenced him tothe agreed-upon aggregate prison term of 2
We affirm. We reject defendant's claim that, because County Court did not take intoconsideration his limited education, his waiver of the right to appeal was not knowing, intelligentand voluntary. Our review of the record reveals that County Court explained the trial-relatedrights that would be forfeited by defendant's guilty plea and the consequences thereof. The courtseparately explained the right to appeal and its ramifications, distinguished the right from theother rights that defendant was forfeiting, answered defendant's questions regarding the waiver,provided him with time to confer with counsel and ascertained that he was voluntarily waivingthe right to appeal. Defendant thereafter signed a written waiver in open court, after affirming tothe court that counsel had read it to him and that he understood its meaning. In light of this, wefind that defendant validly waived the right to appeal his conviction and sentence (see People v Sanders, 25 NY3d337, 340-341 [2015]; People vLopez, 6 NY3d 248, 256 [2006]). Defendant's [*2]validappeal waiver precludes his contention that his sentence is harsh and excessive (see People v Mann, 140 AD3d1532, 1533 [2016]; People vScott, 139 AD3d 1266, 1266 [2016], lv denied 27 NY3d 1155 [2016]).
Defendant's claim that his sentence is illegal survives his appeal waiver, but our review of therecord confirms that County Court imposed a legal sentence. Although County Court referred toone of the counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree as a class D felony atsentencing, it is apparent from a review of the uniform sentence and commitment form that thecourt simply misspoke and that defendant was properly sentenced upon his conviction for threecounts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree, a class E felony, and one countof welfare fraud in the third degree, a class D felony (see People v Ressy, 141 AD3d 839, 843 n 2 [2016], lvdenied 28 NY3d 1030 [2016]). We have examined the remaining contentions advanced bydefendant in his supplemental pro se brief and find them to be without merit.
Lynch, Rose, Devine and Mulvey, JJ., concur. Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.