Opinion
November 3, 1983
Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (William Holland, J.), rendered January 29, 1982, which convicted defendant after trial of the crimes of robbery in the first degree (Penal Law, § 160.15), criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (Penal Law, § 265.03) and criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree (Penal Law, § 265.02), and imposing concurrent indeterminate sentences of 3 to 9 years on the robbery count, 3 to 9 years on the possession of a weapon in the second degree count and 1 to 3 years on the possession of a weapon in the third degree count, is unanimously modified, as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, only to the extent of reversing the indeterminate sentences on both the robbery count and the possession of a weapon in the second degree count and reducing the sentence to 2 to 6 years, and otherwise affirmed. The defendant lived over a bodega owned by the victim, which was located at 2 East 181st Street in The Bronx. In March 1981, the victim went to Puerto Rico for a couple of weeks. Before leaving, the victim hired the defendant, at $70 per week, to help the victim's brother-in-law close up the bodega each evening. When the victim returned, he paid the defendant $140 plus a $50 bonus. However, the defendant only took $170, informing the victim that he did not need the other $20. About three weeks later, defendant came into the bodega and demanded this $20, claiming that since the victim offered it to him, the victim now owed it to him. The victim told defendant that once defendant rejected the money he no longer had a claim to it. Within the hour, defendant was back in the bodega, and at the point of a gun he compelled the victim to give the defendant $20. The presentence report reveals that the defendant is 29 years old and a Cuban refugee, without a prior criminal record. The facts of this crime are unusual, in that defendant committed the subject crime to obtain $20 that had earlier been offered to him as a gift and which he believed was his. Consequently, in our opinion, the ends of justice would best be served by this sentence reduction.
Concur — Murphy, P.J., Ross, Carro, Silverman and Fein, JJ.