Opinion
No. 570174/21
04-15-2024
The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Alexis Polanco, Defendant-Appellant.
Unpublished Opinion
Present: Hagler, P.J., Brigantti, Perez, JJ.
PER CURIAM
Defendant appeals from a judgment of the Criminal Court of the City of New York, Bronx County (Ashlee Crawford, J.), rendered May 18, 2021, convicting him, upon a plea of guilty, of driving while impaired by alcohol, and imposing sentence.
Judgment of conviction (Ashlee Crawford, J.), rendered May 18, 2021, affirmed.
Since defendant waived the right to be prosecuted by information, the facial sufficiency of the accusatory instrument must be assessed under the standard required of a misdemeanor complaint (see People v Dumay, 23 N.Y.3d 518, 522 [2014]). So viewed, the accusatory instrument was jurisdictionally valid because it described facts of an evidentiary nature establishing reasonable cause to believe that defendant was guilty of driving while impaired by alcohol (see Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192[1]), and in particular, satisfied the operation element of the offense. The instrument recited that at 2:33 a.m., a police officer "heard a loud noise" and observed defendant standing in front of a vehicle with damage to its front driver's side; that a second damaged vehicle was next to defendant's vehicle; and that defendant stated "yeah, I lost control, we were arguing and I hit the car." These allegations were "sufficient to support the inference that defendant was the operator of the vehicle involved in the accident" (People v Esposito, 33 N.Y.3d 1016, 1017 [2019]; see People v Dunster, 146 A.D.3d 1029, 1030 [2017], lv denied 29 N.Y.3d 997 [2017]; People v Gomez, 73 Misc.3d 140 [A], 2021 NY Slip Op 51183[U][App Term, 1st Dept 2021], lv denied 38 N.Y.3d 927 [2022]).