Opinion
September 14, 1992
Appeal from the County Court, Westchester County (Nicolai, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
Contrary to the defendant's contentions, the court did not erroneously deny his motion to dismiss the indictment as a result of prejudicial pre-indictment delay. As this Court has recently reiterated: "`In terms of a defendant's due process right to a prompt prosecution after the occurrence of the criminal transaction, there are four factors of primary importance: (1) the length of the delay; (2) the reason for the delay; (3) the degree of actual prejudice to the defendant; and (4) the seriousness of the underlying offense' (People v Bryant, 65 A.D.2d 333, 336)" (People v LaRocca, 172 A.D.2d 628). In this case the approximately six-month delay between the time that the defendant twice sold drugs to an undercover officer and his indictment and arrest was not excessive as a matter of law (see, People v Braxton, 176 A.D.2d 811; People v Romero, 173 A.D.2d 654; People v LaRocca, supra; People v Angrisani, 160 A.D.2d 713). The prosecution had a good-faith reason for this delay since the defendant was one suspect in an ongoing undercover narcotics investigation (see, People v Angrisani, supra; People v Donovan, 141 A.D.2d 835). The defendant's unelaborated assertions of lost alibi witnesses are unpersuasive "routine-like claim[s] of prejudice" (People v Fuller, 57 N.Y.2d 152, 160; see, People v London, 36 A.D.2d 980) and there is no question that the drug charges leveled at him were most serious (see, People v Donovan, supra). Accordingly, on balance we are satisfied that the delay in promptly prosecuting the defendant was not so great as to deprive him of due process.
We have reviewed the defendant's remaining contentions and find them to be without merit. Rosenblatt, J.P., Miller, Ritter and Pizzuto, JJ., concur.