Opinion
January 17, 1995
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Mary McGowan Davis, J.).
Defendant's claim that the court erred in failing to charge the jury on the defense of agency is not preserved for appellate review as a matter of law, defendant having failed to object to the jury charge, or to request an agency charge (People v Gibbons, 156 A.D.2d 263, lv denied 75 N.Y.2d 919). In any event, were we to consider the claim in the interest of justice, we would find that no reasonable view of the evidence could support an inference that defendant was acting as an extension of the buyer, where defendant initiated the narcotics transaction with the undercover officer, with whom he had no prior relationship, by uttering to her the word "jumbos", a street term for large vials of crack, and, upon the officer's request for "two", led her a short distance to his companion, with whom she completed the transaction (see, People v. Herring, 83 N.Y.2d 780). Defendant's "`overall manner and actions substantiate that this was a well-choreographed, two-person drug operation, conducted by two street-wise entrepreneurs'" (People v. Fowler, 154 A.D.2d 272, 274, lv denied 74 N.Y.2d 948; People v Windley, 78 A.D.2d 55, 58). That defendant possessed neither drugs nor buy money "is not unusual given the separate roles played by drug dealing accomplices in order to avoid detection" (People v Santiago, 206 A.D.2d 251).
Concur — Sullivan, J.P., Rosenberger, Nardelli and Williams, JJ.