PEOPLE v. BENEFIELD (2005)

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, New York.

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Hughie BENEFIELD, Defendant-Appellant.

Decided: April 21, 2005

MARLOW, J.P., ELLERIN, NARDELLI, WILLIAMS, SWEENY, JJ.

Richard M. Greenberg, Office of the Appellate Defender, New York (Alexis Agathocleous of counsel), for appellant. Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Alan Gadlin of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Carol Berkman, J.), rendered July 23, 2003, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of enterprise corruption, and sentencing him to a term of 2 to 6 years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant's unpreserved challenge to the validity of his plea does not come within the narrow exception to the preservation requirement (see People v. Lopez, 71 N.Y.2d 662, 529 N.Y.S.2d 465, 525 N.E.2d 5 [1988] ), and we decline to review it in the interest of justice. Were we to reach this claim in the interest of justice, we would find that the record establishes the voluntariness of the plea and there was nothing in the allocution that cast significant doubt on defendant's guilt. The court sufficiently explained the elements of enterprise corruption, and defendant's factual recitation did not negate any of those elements. On the contrary, defendant's guilt could be readily inferred from his allocution (see People v. McGowen, 42 N.Y.2d 905, 397 N.Y.S.2d 993, 366 N.E.2d 1347 [1977] ).

We perceive no basis for reducing the sentence.

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