Opinion
May 24, 1993
Appeal from the County Court, Westchester County (Lange, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
On appeal, the defendant contends that the court erred in admitting into evidence certain items seized from his house during a police search. We disagree. The police executed a search warrant, permitting the officers to search for any evidence or proceeds of a robbery. Some of the items seized were specifically enumerated in the search warrant, and the remaining seized items were lawfully recovered by the police pursuant to the "plain view" doctrine (see, People v Basilicato, 64 N.Y.2d 103, 115; People v McCullars, 174 A.D.2d 118, 122).
The defendant additionally contends that the court erred in admitting into evidence an accomplice's statement made to the police, just after her arrest, on the ground that the statement impermissibly bolstered the accomplice's trial testimony. We find that the admission into evidence of this statement was error. The theory of the defense was that the accomplice's motive for testifying against the defendant "was precisely the same at the time of arrest as it was at the time of trial" (People v McClean, 69 N.Y.2d 426, 430). Consequently, the prior consistent statement of the accomplice was not made prior to the alleged motive to fabricate, and the prior statement was not admissible for the purpose of rehabilitating the accomplice's credibility. Nevertheless, in light of the other overwhelming evidence of the defendant's guilt, we find that there is no significant probability that the court would have acquitted the defendant had the accomplice's statement been excluded (see, People v Crimmins, 36 N.Y.2d 230; People v Cheek, 163 A.D.2d 580).
Contrary to the defendant's further contention, the evidence adduced by the People to corroborate the accomplice testimony was sufficient "to connect the defendant to the crime [in such a way] as to reasonably satisfy the [trier-of-fact] that the accomplice [was] telling the truth" (People v Glasper, 52 N.Y.2d 970, 971; People v Johnson, 188 A.D.2d 552). Sullivan, J.P., Lawrence, Eiber and Santucci, JJ., concur.