Opinion
May 28, 1996
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Bronx County, William Donnino, J., Bonnie Wittner, J.
Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the People ( People v. Contes, 60 N.Y.2d 620, 621), it was legally sufficient to establish defendant's guilt of the crimes of which he was convicted. Nor was the verdict against the weight of the evidence. Any inconsistencies in the witnesses' testimony are not sufficiently consequential to warrant disturbing the jury's findings of credibility ( see, People v. Bleakley, 69 N.Y.2d 490, 495).
At trial, defendant claimed that a prosecution witness fabricated parts of his testimony by tailoring it to match certain discovery materials to which this witness, according to defendant's speculative theory, supposedly had access while incarcerated with defendant. It was not an improvident exercise of discretion for the trial court to have denied defendant's request to introduce these discovery materials into evidence since there was no foundation laid for their admission ( see, People v. Smith, 172 A.D.2d 277, lv denied 78 N.Y.2d 974), and their admission would not have aided the jury in resolving relevant issues and might have confused the jury or led to improper speculation ( see, People v. Scarola, 71 N.Y.2d 769, 777-778). Although certain comments of the prosecutor during summation with respect to the discovery materials were misleading, as the trial court found, the error did not deprive defendant of a fair trial since the comments were isolated, the court provided a curative instruction and the evidence of guilt was overwhelming ( see, People v. Escalera, 220 A.D.2d 259, lv denied 87 N.Y.2d 846).
We perceive no abuse of discretion in sentencing.
Concur — Murphy, P.J., Sullivan, Wallach, Nardelli and Tom, JJ.