Opinion
February 18, 1992
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Miller, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
We find that it was not error for the trial court to refuse to charge the jury on the defense of agency. In the absence of a reasonable view of the evidence indicating that the defendant acted merely as the agent of the buyer, the agency defense should not be submitted to the jury (see, People v. Argibay, 45 N.Y.2d 45, cert denied sub nom. Hahn-DiGuiseppe v. New York, 439 U.S. 930; People v. Ortiz, 76 N.Y.2d 446). Here, there is no reasonable view of the evidence which would have supported the submission of the agency defense to the jury. The defendant exhibited salesmanlike behavior and clearly acted as a middleman profiting from the sales she helped to consummate. Accordingly, it was proper for the court to have declined to give an agency instruction because the trial testimony did not support an inference that the defendant was merely acting as an agent of the police officer who posed as a buyer (see, People v. Ortiz, supra; People v. Perez, 154 A.D.2d 628).
We further find that the defendant's sentence was not excessive (People v. Suitte, 90 A.D.2d 80). Thompson, J.P., Rosenblatt, Lawrence and Miller, JJ., concur.