Summary
affirming dismissal of an indictment where the defendant had been convicted of federal charges "involv[ing] the same fraud, against the same victims"
Summary of this case from New York ex rel. Khurana v. Spherion Corp.Opinion
12170 Ind. No. 774/19 Case No. 2020-1097
10-22-2020
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Appellant, v. Paul J. MANAFORT, Jr., Defendant–Respondent.
Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Valerie Figueredo of counsel), for appellant. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, New York (Todd Blanche of counsel), for respondent.
Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Valerie Figueredo of counsel), for appellant.
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, New York (Todd Blanche of counsel), for respondent.
Renwick, J.P., Manzanet–Daniels, Gesmer, Oing, JJ.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Maxwell Wiley, J.), entered on or about December 18, 2019, which granted defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground of statutory double jeopardy, unanimously affirmed.
We affirm based on Supreme Court's well-reasoned analysis. It is undisputed that the federal charges of which defendant has already been convicted involve the same fraud, against the same victims, as is charged in his New York indictment. CPL 40.20(2) provides that a person may not be separately prosecuted for two offenses based upon the same act or criminal transaction. Under the statutory exception at issue here, a person may be successively prosecuted for two offenses based on the same criminal transaction where each offense contains an element that is not an element of the other, and "the statutory provisions defining such offenses are designed to prevent very different kinds of harm or evil" ( CPL 40.20[2][b] ). Here, as the court correctly found, the exception set forth in CPL 40.20(2)(b) is inapplicable. The People failed to establish that the federal and state statutes, all of which were directed against fraudulent transactions, were designed to prevent very different kinds of harm or evil (see e.g. People v. Helmsley, 170 A.D.2d 209, 566 N.Y.S.2d 223 [1st Dept. 1991] ). The statutory differences cited by the People fall far short of satisfying the "very different kinds" test.