People v Johnson
2025 NY Slip Op 05168 [241 AD3d 1171]
September 25, 2025
Appellate Division, First Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, November 5, 2025


[*1]
 The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Richard Johnson, Appellant.

Twyla Carter, The Legal Aid Society, New York (Désirée Sheridan of counsel), for appellant.

Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Margaret M. Crookston of counsel), for respondent.


HEADNOTES


Crimes - Sentence - Judicial Diversion Program

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Ann E. Scherzer, J., at plea; Guy Mitchell, J., at diversion hearing; Ellen Biben, J., at sentencing), rendered May 30, 2019, convicting defendant of grand larceny in the fourth degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 11/2 to 3 years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant's arguments regarding the determination to deny his application for judicial diversion are unpreserved (see People v Kirk, 234 AD3d 452, 452-453 [1st Dept [2025], lv denied 43 NY3d 945 [2025]), and we decline to review them in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, we find that the court did not violate a promise to grant participation in diversion in exchange for defendant's guilty plea. The record is clear that the court promised defendant only an opportunity to be screened for diversion, not that he would be sentenced to diversion following screening. Supreme Court acted well within its discretion in denying diversion, given defendant's extensive criminal history, his disruptive conduct throughout the proceedings, the absence of any showing of likelihood of success in a drug program, and prior failed efforts at diversion (see People v Young, 184 AD3d 443, 444 [1st Dept 2020], lv denied 35 NY3d 1071 [2020]). Concur—Webber, J.P., Kapnick, Gesmer, Higgitt, Hagler, JJ.