People v. Boyea
| Decision Date | 28 December 1995 |
| Citation | 636 N.Y.S.2d 136,222 A.D.2d 937 |
| Parties | , 106 Ed. Law Rep. 297 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Wilfred BOYEA, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
D.J. & J.A. Cirando (John A. Cirando, of counsel), Syracuse, for appellant.
Richard V. Manning, District Attorney (Donald S. Thomson, of counsel), Canton, for respondent.
Before MIKOLL, J.P., and MERCURE, CASEY, YESAWICH and PETERS, JJ.
Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of St. Lawrence County (Rogers, J.), rendered December 22, 1993, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crimes of sodomy in the first degree (two counts) and sexual abuse in the first degree (seven counts).
During the 1989-1990 and 1990-1991 school years, defendant, a teacher, was assigned to provide remedial assistance to students in the "resource room" at the Madrid Elementary School in the Town of Madrid, St. Lawrence County. This position involves working with students who have been found to need extra help in completing their assignments and homework. The students are assigned to attend the resource room during certain portions of the day; at any given time, there might be as few as one or two students present.
In February 1993, Deborah Croff, who had served as a teacher's aide in defendant's classroom during the 1989-1990 school year, informed the Superintendent of the Madrid-Waddington Central School District that she had seen defendant reward students for good work by having them remove quarters from his pants pockets. At the Superintendent's direction, Croff questioned one of the students (hereinafter victim B), who, after an initial denial, told her that he had, in fact, received this type of reward. Upon further investigation, this student and two others--all of whom were between 8 and 11 years of age at the time of the alleged incidents--reported that on several occasions when defendant had them reach into his pocket, ostensibly for money, he had shifted his body so that the boy would touch his penis through a hole in the pocket. Two of the boys (victims A and C) recounted instances when defendant had held them on his lap and moved or "squirmed", so that they could feel his penis against their buttocks, and victim B later indicated, at a meeting attended by the school principal and a psychologist, that defendant had held him against a wall of lockers in the classroom, taken the child's pants down, and sodomized him.
Following indictment and a jury trial, at which Croff, the school principal, the Superintendent and each of the three victims testified for the People, and the school psychologist, another student and an expert in child abuse investigatory techniques testified for the defense, defendant was convicted of two counts of sodomy, and seven counts of sexual abuse. Sentenced to an aggregate term of 15 to 45 years in prison, defendant appeals.
We reject defendant's contention that the indictment, as narrowed by the bill of particulars, insufficiently particularizes the dates and times of the crimes. Given the age and intelligence of the victims, the nature of the crimes charged (which, not infrequently, are neither witnessed by nonparticipants nor reported promptly by the victims), and the fact that defendant, an authority figure to these children, told them to "trust me" and not to tell, it is understandable why the People were unable to obtain a more precise estimate of the exact dates the crimes occurred (see, People v. Watt, 84 N.Y.2d 948, 950-951, 620 N.Y.S.2d 817, 644 N.E.2d 1373). Under the circumstances, the time periods stated in the bill of particulars (the longest of which is just under three months, and the remainder--most of which are further particularized as to the day of the week or a few specific dates--span less than a month each) were sufficient to apprise defendant of the accusations against him, enable him to prepare a defense and prevent further prosecution for the same conduct (see, id.; People v. Dunn, 204 A.D.2d 919, 920, 612 N.Y.S.2d 266, lv. denied, 84 N.Y.2d 907, 621 N.Y.S.2d 524, 645 N.E.2d 1224).
Nor did County Court err in refusing to allow defendant to view the victims' school records. In passing on a request of this nature, the court is obliged to balance the public policy favoring the confidentiality of school records, especially those of students with special needs (see, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g [b]; 8 NYCRR 200.5 [f] ), against defendant's right to cross-examine and confront the witnesses against him (cf., People v. Gissendanner, 48 N.Y.2d 543, 547-548, 423 N.Y.S.2d 893, 399 N.E.2d 924). Defendant sought production of these records to assist his expert in drawing...
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