Opinion
March 7, 2000
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Bernard Fried, J.), rendered May 12, 1998, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, and sentencing him, as a second violent felony offender, to a term of 7 years, unanimously affirmed.
Mary C. Farrington, for respondent.
Steven R. Berko, for defendant-appellant.
ROSENBERGER, J.P., WALLACH, ANDRIAS, FRIEDMAN, JJ.
Defendant's suppression motion was properly denied. We find that the totality of the information obtained by the police on the scene provided probable cause (see, Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175) to believe that defendant either personally threw a pistol under a vehicle or jointly possessed the pistol with two other men. Therefore, we need not reach the issue of whether defendant's detention constituted an arrest. The police lawfully recovered a second pistol during a properly conducted inventory search of defendant's car (see, People v. Galak, 80 N.Y.2d 715), made after the police learned that during the incident resulting in the arrest defendant and his companions had produced the first pistol from defendant's car.
THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.