People v Cruzado
2016 NY Slip Op 01263 [136 AD3d 572]
February 23, 2016
Appellate Division, First Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, March 23, 2016


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

Seymour W. James, Jr., The Legal Aid Society, New York (Allen Fallek of counsel), for appellant.

Darcel D. Clark, District Attorney, Bronx (William Terrell, III of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (April A. Newbauer, J.), rendered November 9, 2012, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of robbery in the second degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of five years, unanimously affirmed.

The verdict was not against the weight of the evidence (see People v Danielson, 9 NY3d 342 [2007]). The evidence supports the conclusion that when defendant used force against a store employee, at least one of his objectives was to overcome the employee's resistance to defendant's retention of stolen merchandise (see People v Gordon, 23 NY3d 643, 649-651 [2014]). The record establishes that defendant still had the merchandise at the time he punched the employee and that he lost possession of it only in the midst of the altercation (see People v Colon, 129 AD3d 597, 597 [1st Dept 2015], lv denied 26 NY3d 966 [2015]). Thus, defendant's statement that he would surrender the merchandise was negated by his actions. Concur—Tom, J.P., Andrias, Moskowitz and Richter, JJ.