PEOPLE v. BROWN (2025)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Thomas A. Farber, J.), entered on or about October 25, 2022, which adjudicated defendant a level three sexually violent sex offender pursuant to the Sex Offender Registration Act (Correction Law art 6–C), unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The court providently exercised its discretion in declining to grant a downward departure (see People v. Gillotti, 23 N.Y.3d 841, 861, 994 N.Y.S.2d 1, 18 N.E.3d 701 [2014]).  “Defendant's pattern of offending behavior indicated a significant risk of recidivism, which was not outweighed by the mitigating factors he cites, including his efforts at rehabilitation” (People v. Townsend, 233 A.D.3d 548, 549, 222 N.Y.S.3d 61 [1st Dept. 2024], lv granted 43 N.Y.3d 907, 2025 WL 1688975 [2025]).  By the time of the SORA hearing, defendant had been convicted of multiple additional crimes for rapes he committed before, after, and in between the offenses he was convicted of here.  To the extent that defendant's deteriorating physical health was a mitigating factor, it was outweighed by the horrific nature of the sex offenses he perpetrated against three innocent strangers, whom he bound, gagged, robbed, and raped at gunpoint and/or knifepoint (see People v. Santiago, 225 A.D.3d 478, 206 N.Y.S.3d 594 [1st Dept. 2024], lv denied 42 N.Y.3d 904, 2024 WL 4204822 [2024]).