Opinion
December 13, 1989
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Demakos, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the People (see, People v Contes, 60 N.Y.2d 620, 621), we find that it was legally sufficient to support the defendant's conviction. Moreover, upon the exercise of our factual review power, we find that the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence.
At the hearing the People failed to produce the photographic array which was used in one of the identification procedures challenged by the defendant. The failure of the People to preserve the photographic array gives rise to the inference that the array was suggestive. Further, this inference was not sufficiently rebutted in the record (see, People v Scatliffe, 117 A.D.2d 827; People v Johnson, 106 A.D.2d 469; cf., People v Stokes, 139 A.D.2d 785).
However, the lineup identifications of the defendant by the witnesses Enrique Garcia and Thomas Nerys, almost four months later, were sufficiently attenuated to remove them from any taint that the possibly suggestive photographic array might have had (see, People v Smith, 140 A.D.2d 647; People v Watts, 130 A.D.2d 695; People v Ruffino, 110 A.D.2d 198). While the witness Pedro Orta did not attend the lineup identification so that his pretrial identification remains tainted by the inference of suggestiveness, his in-court identification of the defendant was cumulative and constitutes harmless error (see, People v Hamlin, 71 N.Y.2d 750; People v Crimmins, 36 N.Y.2d 230).
We have reviewed the defendant's remaining contentions and find them to be either unpreserved for appellate review or without merit. Thompson, J.P., Bracken, Rubin and Spatt, JJ., concur.