PEOPLE v. FERREIRA (2025)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (April A. Newbauer, J.), rendered December 3, 2021, as amended June 15, 2022, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of attempted arson in the second degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of five years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant validly waived his right to appeal (People v. Thomas, 34 NY3d 545, 567 [2019], cert denied 589 U.S. ––––, 140 S Ct 2634 [2020]), which “forecloses review of his challenge to the grand jury proceeding” (People v. Correa, 228 AD3d 409, 410 [1st Dept 2024], lv denied 42 NY3d 1079 [2025]).  Additionally, by pleading guilty, defendant forfeited his right to raise any claims of evidentiary errors in the grand jury proceeding (see People v. Hansen, 95 N.Y.2d 227, 232 [2000]).

In any event, defendant's challenges to the grand jury proceeding were not preserved by his argument in support of his request to inspect the grand jury minutes in his omnibus motion (see People v. Brown, 81 N.Y.2d 798, 799 [1993]), and we decline to reach defendant's claims in the interest of justice.  As an alternative holding, we reject them on the merits.  Defendant's claim that the prosecutor impaired the integrity of the grand jury proceeding rests on the prosecutor's alleged introduction of “inadmissible evidence,” but “the sufficiency of the evidence before the Grand Jury cannot be challenged” after a guilty plea (Hansen, 95 N.Y.2d at 233).  In any event, any error involving a fire marshal's testimony identifying defendant on a surveillance video was harmless in view of the other evidence demonstrating reasonable cause to believe defendant committed arson, including defendant's confession (see People v. Calderon, 171 AD3d 422, 423 [1st Dept 2019], lv denied 33 NY3d 1102 [2019]).

Even if defendant's confession, introduced to the grand jury through witness testimony, had been unconstitutionally obtained, a later finding of inadmissibility would not invalidate the indictment (see Matter of Rodney J., 108 A.D.2d 307, 311–312 [1st Dept 1985]).

Following our in camera review, we have considered defendant's remaining arguments and find them unavailing.