PEOPLE v. JACKSON (2006)

Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Alexander W. Hunter, Jr., J.), rendered November 13, 2002, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of three counts of promoting prostitution in the second degree, and sentencing him to three concurrent terms of 1 1/313 to 4 years, and also convicting him, upon his plea of guilty, of attempted kidnapping in the second degree, and sentencing him to a concurrent term of 4 years, unanimously affirmed.

Since, in addition to attacking the credibility of the complaining witnesses, the codefendant's counsel put forward an implicit alternative defense that the codefendant was as much a victim of defendant's threats as were the complaining witnesses, the better course might have been to grant defendant's severance motion (see People v. Mahboubian, 74 N.Y.2d 174, 184, 544 N.Y.S.2d 769, 543 N.E.2d 34 [1989] ).   However, we find any error in this regard to be harmless (see People v. Crimmins, 36 N.Y.2d 230, 367 N.Y.S.2d 213, 326 N.E.2d 787 [1975] ).   The civilian witnesses provided consistent and convincing testimony that was corroborated by police testimony.