PEOPLE v. GE (2025)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Robert Mandelbaum, J.), rendered February 7, 2020, as amended February 21, 2020, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of grand larceny in the third degree (3 counts), criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree (4 counts), and identity theft in the first degree (11 counts), and sentencing him to an aggregate term of 3 to 9 years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant's legal insufficiency claims, challenging the People's evidence of his state of mind with respect to all charges, are unpreserved, and we decline to review them in the interest of justice (see People v. Gray, 86 N.Y.2d 10, 20–21, 629 N.Y.S.2d 173, 652 N.E.2d 919 [1995]).  As an alternative holding, we reject them on the merits.  We also find that the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence (see People v. Danielson, 9 N.Y.3d 342, 348–349, 849 N.Y.S.2d 480, 880 N.E.2d 1 [2007];  see also People v. Baque, 43 N.Y.3d 26, 229 N.Y.S.3d 62, 254 N.E.3d 606 [2024]).  The evidence, including surveillance footage depicting defendant's conduct within the store, testimony that defendant never had a store credit account, his use of a forged credit card bearing a fictitious name, testimony from an investigator explaining how a store credit card recovered from defendant was determined to be fraudulent, and defendant's statement to the investigator that he obtained that card from an unavailable Chinese website, demonstrated that defendant knowingly intended to defraud the true account holders by assuming their identities, which he accomplished by using their store credit card account numbers to purchase merchandise (see Penal Law §§ 190.77[1], 190.80;  People v. Roberts, 31 N.Y.3d 406, 419, 79 N.Y.S.3d 597, 104 N.E.3d 701 [2018]).  It further demonstrated that defendant knowingly possessed the forged credit cards (see Penal Law §§ 170.10[1], 170.25;  People v. Price, 16 A.D.3d 323, 792 N.Y.S.2d 68 [1st Dept. 2005], lv denied 5 N.Y.3d 767, 801 N.Y.S.2d 262, 834 N.E.2d 1272 [2005]), and that he intentionally stole property (see Penal Law §§ 155.05, 155.35[1];  People v. Olivo, 52 N.Y.2d 309, 320 n 8, 438 N.Y.S.2d 242, 420 N.E.2d 40 [1981]).