PEOPLE v. DOE (2000)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Edward McLaughlin, J.), rendered April 14, 1998, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third and fifth degrees, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to concurrent terms of 4 1/212 to 9 years and 2 to 4 years, respectively, unanimously affirmed.

 Defendant's suppression motion was properly denied.   The experienced narcotics officer's observation of defendant exchanging for money a small unknown object that he removed from a pack on his waist, coupled with defendant's immediate flight through a hole into an abandoned building when the officer shouted “police”, provided probable cause for defendant's arrest (see, People v. Jones, 90 N.Y.2d 835, 660 N.Y.S.2d 549, 683 N.E.2d 14).   Immediately following defendant's arrest and removal from the building, the officer properly conducted a warrantless search of the pack, particularly since the situation was volatile in that defendant had been subdued after a struggle (see, People v. DeSantis, 46 N.Y.2d 82, 412 N.Y.S.2d 838, 385 N.E.2d 577, cert. denied 443 U.S. 912, 99 S.Ct. 3102, 61 L.Ed.2d 876;  People v. Wylie, 244 A.D.2d 247, 666 N.Y.S.2d 1, lv. denied 91 N.Y.2d 946, 671 N.Y.S.2d 726, 694 N.E.2d 895).

MEMORANDUM DECISION.