Opinion
No. 2023-50977 570014/16
09-18-2023
The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Boubacar Bell, Defendant-Appellant.
Unpublished Opinion
PRESENT: Hagler, P.J., Brigantti, James, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Defendant appeals from a judgment of the Criminal Court of the City of New York, New York County (Lisa A. Sokoloff, J.), rendered December 16, 2015, convicting him, upon his plea of guilty, of resisting arrest, and imposing sentence.
Judgment of conviction (Lisa A. Sokoloff, J.), rendered December 16, 2015, affirmed.
We find unavailing defendant's challenge to the second-degree assault charge that was, initially, the sole offense pleaded in the accusatory instrument. In view of defendant's waiver of prosecution by information, the accusatory instrument is assessed under the reasonable cause standard applicable to a misdemeanor complaint (see People v Dumay, 23 N.Y.3d 518, 522 [2014]). So viewed, the instrument was jurisdictionally valid because the factual allegations establish reasonable cause to believe that defendant was guilty of second-degree assault (see Penal Law § 120.05[3]), and, in particular, satisfy the "physical injury" element of the offense. The instrument recited that defendant kicked a police officer in the stomach, causing the officer to fall back into a parked pedicab and experience "substantial pain in the stomach." Based on these allegations, "a jury could certainly infer that the victim felt substantial pain" (People v Henderson, 92 N.Y.2d 677, 680 [1999]; see People v Mercado, 94 A.D.3d 502 [2012], lv denied 19 N.Y.3d 999 [2012]; People v Lang, 81 A.D.3d 538 [2011], lv denied 16 N.Y.3d 896 [2011]), a term which simply means "more than slight or trivial pain" (People v Chiddick, 8 N.Y.3d 445, 447 [2007]; see Penal Law § 10.00[9]).