| People v Ortiz |
| 2024 NY Slip Op 00245 [223 AD3d 539] |
| January 18, 2024 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| Published by New York State Law Reporting
Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. |
| As corrected through Wednesday, March 6, 2024 |
[*1]
The People of the State of New York,
Respondent, v Robert Ortiz, Appellant. |
Caprice R. Jenerson, Office of the Appellate Defender, New York (Samuel
Steinbock-Pratt of counsel), for appellant.
Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Robert Butlien of counsel), for
respondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Steven M. Statsinger, J.), rendered
March 18, 2019, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of burglary in the third
degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 31/2
to 7 years, to run concurrently with sentences imposed under indictment Nos. 3218/17
and 3009/16, unanimously modified, on the law, to the extent of reducing the sentence to
three to six years, and otherwise affirmed.
Defendant pleaded guilty in exchange for a promised sentence of 31/2
to 7 years, to run concurrently with a longer nine-year term previously imposed under
indictment No. 3218/17. The record is clear that defendant pleaded guilty to avoid
additional prison time beyond a nine-year sentence. Subsequently, defendant was
resentenced to a term of six years in the prior matter. Because the reduction of the
preexisting sentence nullified a benefit that was expressly promised and that materially
induced defendant's guilty plea, defendant is entitled to withdraw his plea (see People v Pichardo, 1 NY3d
126, 129 [2003]; see also
People v Rowland, 8 NY3d 342, 345 [2007]). Defendant, however, seeks a
reduction of his sentence to three to six years' imprisonment rather than vacatur of the
plea. The People consent to this relief. Accordingly, we reduce defendant's sentence to
three to six years (see CPL 470.20; People v LaSalle, 95 NY2d 827, 829
[2000]). Concur—Kern, J.P., Friedman, González, Shulman, JJ.