The People of the State of New York, v. LASHEA ALDRIDGE (2026)

In the wake of People v Perdue (41 NY3d 245 [2023]), a defendant may ask that an eyewitness be subjected to a pretrial identification procedure before being asked to identify a defendant for the first time in court. This procedural safeguard was designed to counteract the inherent suggestiveness of the traditional in-court identification procedure and to protect against the risk that the defendant will be wrongfully convicted based on mistaken eyewitness identification. In this assault case, defendants have moved to subject the complaining witness to a pretrial double-blind photographic array identification procedure. This court must now decide whether to grant that request when both defendants admit being the assailants but claim to have acted in self-defense.

I. Factual Background

Defendants are charged by indictment with assaulting a female employee of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) inside an elevated subway station in Brooklyn on June 28, 2025. Argus surveillance video provided a long-distance view of two women and a toddler entering the stairs up to the elevated New Lots Avenue subway station. The women allegedly punched the complainant in the face in a dispute at the turnstiles on the mezzanine level. Surveillance video from inside the subway station depicts the women and the toddler ascending from the mezzanine up to the platform and boarding the train, but the train remained in the station, and the two women and the toddler exited the station. High-quality surveillance video from a bodega adjacent to the subway station depicts the two described women and the toddler inside the bodega shortly after the charged assault. The complainant called 911 and filed a police report.

On the same day, the complainant gave a police detective a physical and clothing description of the two women. The detective texted to the complainant screen shots that depicted the two women entering the stairs up to the subway station. The complainant confirmed that the individuals in the screenshots were the two perpetrators. Police distributed wanted flyers derived from still images of the women from the bodega video. A police officer identified defendant Thomas in the wanted flyer as someone whom the officer had met before. A second police officer also identified defendant Aldridge in the wanted flyer as someone whom the officer had met before. Police created I-cards for each defendant.

On July 15, 2025, police apprehended defendant Thomas. In a post-arrest statement to police, defendant Thomas admitted entering the New Lots train station on June 28th with her two-year-old son and a friend, going upstairs to the turnstiles, and encountering a female MTA employee who was with her daughter. Defendant Thomas admitted that she engaged in a fist fight at the turnstiles with the MTA employee and the daughter and claimed that she acted in self-defense. Defendant Thomas additionally admitted entering a bodega after exiting the subway station.

Later the same day, defendant Thomas appeared in a TikTok video that contained a portion of News12 video footage depicting her being escorted out of the police precinct. This footage was followed by a video of defendant Thomas in which she explained the News12 footage and stated, in part, "in sum and substance, that she turned herself in, that the incident is not what the police think it is, she is free at last . . . ."

On July 21, 2025, police arrested defendant Aldridge. In a post-arrest statement to police, defendant Aldridge admitted entering the New Lots train station on June 28th with defendant Thomas (whom Aldridge described as "my sister that y'all arrested, the first one")¹ and "the baby." They went upstairs and encountered a "lady" MTA worker and her daughter near the turnstiles. Defendant Aldridge stated that she acted in self-defense after she and defendant Thomas were attacked by the MTA worker and daughter in a dispute at the turnstiles. She also stated that they went to a bodega afterwards.

On July 22, 2025, defendant Aldrige was arraigned on the indictment in Part Misc Motions, and the case was adjourned to July 31, 2025, in Part TAP2.

On July 30, 2025, defendant Thomas was arraigned on the indictment in Part TAP2. The court approved a temporary "stay away" order of protection in favor of the complainant against defendant Thomas, who signed the order.

On July 31, 2025, defendant Aldridge appeared for calendar call in Part TAP2. The complaining witness and other members of the MTA were present. Defendant Thomas was also present, and the court directed defendant Thomas to leave the courtroom due to the order of protection.

According to the prosecutor, defendant Thomas became irate and yelled obscenities about the complainant and the MTA. The commotion continued outside the courtroom and outside the courthouse. The prosecutor further alleges that defendant Thomas threatened to kill the complainant and her daughter and took pictures of the complainant and her MTA co-workers and told them to "watch your back" (NYSCEF Doc No. 7 at ¶ 4).

The prosecutor subsequently obtained surveillance footage from the courthouse depicting defendant Thomas, the complainant, and several of her MTA co-workers. According to the prosecutor, the footage appears to show defendant Thomas taking photographs with a cellphone in the direction of the complainant and her co-workers.

II. Discussion

This decision rules on defendants' application for relief pursuant to People v Perdue (41 NY3d 245). In papers dated July 21, 2026, defendant Thomas asked for "a hearing consistent with Perdue" (memorandum of law for defendant Thomas at ¶ 9). Upon hearing oral argument on the request at the end of the pretrial suppression hearing conducted in this case on July 17 and 22, 2026, this court remarked that the Perdue decision entitled defendant to request an alternative pretrial identification procedure. Counsel for defendant Thomas then requested a double-blind photographic array procedure. Counsel for defendant Aldridge orally joined in the written and oral motions made by counsel for defendant Thomas.

In Perdue, the Court of Appeals "recognized the inherent suggestiveness of the traditional in-court identification procedure, with a single defendant sitting at a table with defense counsel" (41 NY3d at 250). In such a case, "it will often be immediately clear to the witness who the accused defendant is, especially if the witness has a rudimentary knowledge of courtroom seating arrangements" (id.). This arrangement creates an inherently suggestive identification procedure: "The principal danger is that, faced with the pressures of testifying at trial, the witness will identify the defendant as the perpetrator simply because the defendant is sitting in the appropriate spot, and not because the witness recognizes the defendant as the same person that they observed" (id.).

The Court of Appeals created certain procedural safeguards to protect against the risk of wrongful conviction based on mistaken identification when an eyewitness is expected to make a first-time, in court identification "without having been subjected to any pretrial identification procedure" (id. at 247). In such a case, the prosecution must notify the accused "of that possibility as early as practicable so that the [accused] has a meaningful opportunity to request alternative identification procedures" (id.). If the accused makes such a request, "a trial court may exercise its discretion to fashion any measures necessary to reduce the risk of misidentification" (id.). "The ultimate determination of whether to admit a first-time, in-court identification . . . rests within the evidentiary gatekeeping discretion of the trial court. The court must balance the probative value of the identification against the dangers of misidentification and other prejudice to the defendant" (id. at 247-248).

In exercising that discretion, "the court must consider the danger of misidentification from the suggestiveness of a first-time, in-court identification, and whether there are independent assurances of the identification's reliability that outweigh this risk" (id. at 252). The Court of Appeals stated that those

"considerations may include: the witness's familiarity with the defendant, the quality of the witness's opportunity to observe the defendant before the incident in question . . . , the witness's ability to provide accurate descriptive details regarding the defendant . . . , the time between the crime and the testimony, and whether there is other, reliable trial evidence corroborating the identification"

(id. at 252). "[T]he court may also take into account the suggestiveness of the in-court identification procedure itself" (id.).

In this case, the facts and circumstances create no risk that either defendant will be convicted at trial because of mistaken eyewitness identification. Although the complainant had no prior familiarity with defendants and the motion papers do not provide enough information for this court to make a finding about the complainant's opportunity to observe the perpetrators during the alleged assault, the complainant provided accurate descriptive details to the investigating detective—the clothing description of the perpetrators matched clothing worn by the defendants.

But more importantly, in this case, defendants are not claiming to have been misidentified. Each defendant gave a post-arrest statement to police in which each defendant admitted participating in a fight with the complainant and her daughter at the New Lots Avenue subway station on the date charged in the indictment. In those recorded statements, both defendants say that they were attacked by the complainant and her daughter, and that they were defending themselves from that attack. Their justification defense removes identification as a disputed issue at trial and eliminates the risk that defendants will be wrongfully convicted based on mistaken eyewitness identification.

In any event, the record also contains "other, reliable . . . evidence" to corroborate any in-court identification to be made by the complainant (id.). The corroborating evidence includes the surveillance videos depicting the perpetrators in their distinctive clothing and the high-quality video depicting their faces on the subway platform and inside the bodega. The jurors will view those videos and the defendants in court, and decide, either independently or with the aid of lay non-eyewitness identification testimony (see People v Mosley, 41 NY3d 640, 645 [2024]), whether defendants are the individuals depicted in the videos.

The prosecution has additional evidence that would corroborate any in-court identification of defendant Thomas. In the TikTok video, defendant Thomas made statements arguably supportive of her self-defense claim and inconsistent with any claim of misidentification. Her alleged attempts to threaten and intimidate the complainant could be treated as consciousness of guilt evidence (see People v Bennett, 79 NY2d 464, 470 [1992] ["coercion or harassment of witnesses"]). This evidence would, if admitted at trial, further reduce the risk of conviction based on mistaken identification.

In denying this motion, this court understands that the requested alternative pretrial identification procedures could produce evidence favorable to the defense—the complainant could misidentify the defendants. Any such misidentification could provide a basis for the defense to assert a misidentification defense in addition to the justification defense. The law, of course, permits a defendant to assert inconsistent defenses at trial (see People v Steele, 26 NY2d 526, 529 [1970]; People v Brito, 304 AD2d 320, 321 [1st Dept 2003]). But the Court of Appeals did not decide Perdue to provide a defendant with evidence to assert inconsistent defenses at trial. The Court decided Perdue to prevent potential "miscarriages of justice" based on mistaken eyewitness identification (People v Perdue, 41 NY3d at 249). In this case, the alternative identification procedures requested by defendants "are [not] necessary to enhance the truth finding process, and to prevent [a] wrongful conviction[ ]" (id. at 251 [cleaned up]). This court therefore finds that the requested alternative pretrial identification procedures are not necessary to reduce the risk of eyewitness misidentification.

For the foregoing reasons, this court denies the defense motion to subject the complainant to a pretrial double-blind photographic array identification procedure.

So ordered.

Dated: October 30, 2026

Brooklyn, NY

HEIDI C. CESARE, A.J.S.C.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Throughout the interview, defendant Aldridge refers to Thomas as her sister but acknowledges near the end of the interview that they are not "actually sisters" but friends who have known each other since the age of ten or eleven.

Heidi C. Cesare, J.