PEOPLE v. CIARDIELLO (2020)

ORDERED that the judgment of conviction is affirmed.

Defendant and a codefendant were each charged with assault in the third degree (Penal Law § 120.00 [1]) of the same complainant. At a jury trial, the complainant and his friend testified that they had been at a local bar when an unknown male wearing a dark T-shirt and white shorts walked behind the complainant and hit him repeatedly about the face and head, causing him to bleed through his nose and mouth. The friend, who sat facing the complainant, saw the unexpected attack, and, as he tried to help the complainant, the friend was hit in the back of the head with a bottle by a second assailant whom neither the friend nor the complainant saw.

The two assailants were seen running out of the bar by two police officers on patrol. They canvassed the area in a patrol car, and a few minutes later they saw defendant and the codefendant. The pair darted up and down the street, and ultimately in separate directions, in an attempt to dodge the police. The codefendant was captured first; defendant was found a short time thereafter, hiding in bushes. He was wearing a navy blue T-shirt, and off-white shorts with what appeared to be blood on them.

Following the trial, the jury convicted defendant of assault in the third degree and acquitted the codefendant. Defendant's contention on appeal, that the trial evidence was legally insufficient to convict him of assault in the third degree, is without merit.

Evidence adduced at trial is legally sufficient to support a guilty verdict if it is “competent evidence which, if accepted as true, would establish every element of an offense charged and the defendant's commission thereof” (CPL 70.10 [1]). In other words, trial evidence is legally sufficient if, when it and all reasonable inferences therefrom, viewed in the light most favorable to the People (see People v. Contes, 60 NY2d 620, 621 [1983]; see also People v. Gordon, 23 NY3d 643, 649 [2014]), “could lead a rational person to the conclusion reached by the fact finder” (People v. Hines, 97 NY2d 56, 62 [2001]).

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the People, we find that the friend's testimony—that he saw a man in a black shirt and white shorts hit the complainant's face and head, causing him to bleed from his nose and mouth—was legally sufficient to convict defendant of assault in the third degree in light of the fact that defendant, who was captured minutes after the incident and a few hundred feet away from the location, (1) ran away immediately after the confrontation occurred (see e.g. People v. Sanchez, 157 AD3d 107, 116 [2017], affd 32 NY3d 1021 [2018]; People v. Days, 131 AD3d 972, 974 [2015]); (2) repeatedly attempted to allude the police by running back and forth on the street and hiding in bushes; (3) wore a navy blue shirt and white shorts (see e.g. People v. Johnson, 155 AD2d 236 [1989]); and (4) had what appeared to be blood on his shorts.

Defendant also claims, erroneously, that his conviction was repugnant in light of the codefendant's acquittal. Defendant was the only individual identified as having assaulted the complainant, and the friend testified that the complainant was attacked by only one individual. Thus, the jury was not unreasonable in convicting defendant and acquitting the codefendant.

Accordingly, the judgment of conviction is affirmed.

ADAMS, P.J., RUDERMAN and EMERSON, JJ., concur.