PEOPLE v. GONZALEZ (2000)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Jeffrey Atlas, J.), rendered December 18, 1997, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of assault in the second degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 4 1/212 years, unanimously affirmed.

The court's Sandoval ruling, which permitted cross-examination concerning fifteen larceny-related convictions, without any reference to the underlying facts of those convictions, and which denied inquiry into two prior assault convictions and a prior arson conviction, balanced the appropriate factors and was a proper exercise of discretion (see People v. Walker, 83 N.Y.2d 455, 458-459, 611 N.Y.S.2d 118, 633 N.E.2d 472;  People v. Cooper, 249 A.D.2d 141, 672 N.Y.S.2d 31, affd. 92 N.Y.2d 968, 683 N.Y.S.2d 757, 706 N.E.2d 745).   We note that the larceny-related convictions were both highly relevant to credibility and dissimilar to the crime with which defendant was charged.

MEMORANDUM DECISION.