People v Vargas
2020 NY Slip Op 06156 [187 AD3d 1222]
October 28, 2020
Appellate Division, Second Department
As corrected through Wednesday, December 4, 2019


[*1]
 The People of the State of New York,Respondent,
v
Alex Vargas, Appellant.

Janet E. Sabel, New York, NY (Katheryne M. Martone of counsel), for appellant.

Melinda Katz, District Attorney, Kew Gardens, NY (Johnnette Traill and ChristopherBlira-Koessler of counsel; Eleanor Reilly on the memorandum), for respondent.

Appeal by the defendant, as limited by his motion, from a sentence of the Supreme Court,Queens County (Bruna L. DiBiase, J.), imposed April 15, 2019, upon his plea of guilty, on theground that the sentence was excessive.

Ordered that the sentence is affirmed.

The defendant's waiver of his right to appeal was invalid. The defendant's written waiver ofthe right to appeal misstated the applicable law and was misleading (see People v Howard, 183 AD3d640 [2020]; People vWilkinson, 176 AD3d 879, 880 [2019]). Further, the Supreme Court's terse colloquy atthe plea proceeding relating to the defendant's waiver of his right to appeal was insufficient toremedy the misleading written waiver (see People v Thomas, 34 NY3d 545, 564-566 [2019]; People vHoward, 183 AD3d at 640; People v Wilkinson, 176 AD3d at 880).

However, the sentence imposed was not excessive (see People v Suitte, 90 AD2d 80[1982]). Mastro, J.P., Leventhal, Miller, Duffy and LaSalle, JJ., concur.


NYPTI Decisions © 2026 is a project of New York Prosecutors Training Institute (NYPTI) made possible by leveraging the work we've done providing online research and tools to prosecutors.

NYPTI would like to thank New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, New York State Senate's Open Legislation Project, New York State Unified Court System, New York State Law Reporting Bureau and Free Law Project for their invaluable assistance making this project possible.

Install the free RECAP extensions to help contribute to this archive. See https://free.law/recap/ for more information.