Opinion
August 6, 1990
Appeal from the County Court, Orange County (Pano Z. Patsalos, J.).
Ordered that the appeal from the judgment rendered under indictment No. 247/87 is dismissed as abandoned; and it is further,
Ordered that the judgment rendered under indictment No. 290/88 is modified by vacating the sentence imposed; as so modified, the judgment is affirmed, and the matter is remitted to the County Court, Orange County, for the imposition of a new sentence.
A law enforcement agency is not a "victim" as defined in Penal Law § 60.27 such that it is qualified to receive restitution for "'public monies * * * expended in the pursuit of solving crimes'" (People v Rowe, 152 A.D.2d 907, 908, affd 75 N.Y.2d 948). Although the defendant did not previously object to this aspect of his sentence, "it has long been the law that the 'essential nature' of the right to be sentenced as provided by law, though not formally raised at the trial level, preserves a departure therefrom for review" (People v Fuller, 57 N.Y.2d 152, 156).
The matter is therefore remitted for a new sentence on the defendant's bail jumping conviction. Mangano, P.J., Kunzeman, Kooper, Sullivan and O'Brien, JJ., concur.