Opinion
May 22, 1989
Appeal from the County Court, Nassau County (Thorp, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
Absent actual knowledge of an outstanding charge against a defendant, the police are under no obligation to inquire as to whether the defendant is represented by counsel (see, People v Rosa, 65 N.Y.2d 380; People v Bertolo, 65 N.Y.2d 111; People v Cunningham, 60 N.Y.2d 930; People v Fuschino, 59 N.Y.2d 91; People v Ryans, 118 A.D.2d 741; People v Farinaro, 110 A.D.2d 653). When police do not actually know that open charges are pending, there is no reason to impute constructive knowledge that the suspect in custody already has legal counsel absent bad faith on their part (see, People v Bertolo, supra; People v Lucarano, 61 N.Y.2d 138).
The record reveals that all the officers who interviewed the defendant or who were present during any interviews stated that the defendant claimed that he had concluded a "problem" in Westchester County which, because of his uncle's influence, resulted in him being sentenced to probation. Given the defendant's representation that there were no open cases against him and that there had only been one case which was "all taken care of, all over and done with", the police cannot be charged with either actual or constructive knowledge of his representation on two prior matters. Additionally, since the investigation of the current crime was being handled by the Nassau County police and the prior charges were in Queens and Westchester Counties, it cannot be argued that the police displayed bad faith in accepting the defendant's representation that the previous charge had been disposed of (see, People v Barreto, 143 A.D.2d 920).
Since there is a strong presumption that the jury followed the trial court's instructions (see, People v Mack, 111 A.D.2d 186), we cannot accept the defendant's vague and unsubstantiated claim that the jury may have disregarded the trial court's numerous admonitions to ignore any media accounts of the matter.
We have examined the defendant's remaining contentions with respect to the charge and find them to be either unpreserved for appellate review or without merit. Thompson, J.P., Brown, Rubin and Sullivan, JJ., concur.