PEOPLE v. BOOKMAN (2023)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Tandra L. Dawson, J.), rendered May 1, 2019, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of criminal contempt in the second degree, and sentencing him to a jail term of 15 days, unanimously affirmed.

The accusatory instrument is not jurisdictionally defective.  Giving the allegations “a fair and not overly restrictive or technical reading” (People v. Casey, 95 N.Y.2d 354, 360 [2000]), and “drawing reasonable inferences from all the facts set forth in the accusatory instrument” (People v. Jackson, 18 NY3d 738, 747 [2012]), the accusatory instrument contains sufficient facts to demonstrate “reasonable cause to believe” (CPL 100.40[4][b]) that defendant was guilty of criminal contempt in the second degree.  The factual allegation that “defendant is aware of the order of protection in that defendant was mailed the order of protection” supplied defendant with “sufficient notice of the charged crime to satisfy the demands of due process and double jeopardy” (People v. Dreyden, 15 NY3d 100, 103 [2010]).  Any challenge to the date that the order of protection was mailed or the address to which it was mailed “was a matter to be raised as an evidentiary defense ․, not by insistence that [the accusatory instrument] was jurisdictionally defective” (see People v. Drelich, 32 NY3d 1032, 1033 [2018]; Casey 95 N.Y.2d at 360).