People v. Ianniello

• Decision Date: 11 December 1989
• Citation: 548 N.Y.S.2d 755,156 A.D.2d 469
• Parties: The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Conrad IANNIELLO, Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 755

548 N.Y.S.2d 755

156 A.D.2d 469

The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Conrad IANNIELLO, Appellant.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division Second Department.

Dec. 11, 1989.

Gino Josh Singer and Christine E. Yaris, New York City, for appellant.

Denis Dillon, Dist. Atty., Mineola (Bruce E. Whitney and Kenneth J. Harris, of counsel), for respondent.

Before MANGANO, J.P., and THOMPSON, LAWRENCE and ROSENBLATT, JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT.

Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the County Court, Nassau County (Delin, J.), rendered October 20, 1986, convicting him of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree, upon his plea of guilty, and imposing sentence. The appeal brings up for review the denial, after a hearing, of that branch of the defendant's omnibus motion which was to suppress evidence obtained pursuant to an eavesdropping warrant.

ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed.

We are not persuaded by the defendant's claim that there was no probable cause for the issuance of the eavesdropping warrant. In this respect, we note that the probable cause required for the issuance of an eavesdropping warrant is the same as that required for a search warrant (see, People v. Tambe, 71 N.Y.2d 492, 527 N.Y.S.2d 372, 522 N.E.2d 448; People v. Manuli, 104 A.D.2d 386, 478 N.Y.S.2d 712). In issuing a warrant, the court may properly rely upon reasonable inferences which can be drawn from the allegations of fact in the application (People v. Williams, 119 A.D.2d 606, 500 N.Y.S.2d 778), and the application must not be construed in a hypertechnical manner (People v. Tambe, supra ). The issuing court has considerable discretion in determining the sufficiency of a wiretap application (see, People v. Manuli, supra, 104 A.D.2d at 387, 478 N.Y.S.2d 712), and after a review of the record, we find no indication that there was an improvident exercise of that discretion in this case.

Among the allegations of fact which were submitted in support of the warrant was that the defendant had been observed by a confidential informant participating in narcotics trafficking in 1982 and 1983. Sufficient information to assess the reliability of the informant was revealed to the issuing court; and when viewed with the other information provided sufficient probable cause that the defendant was involved in drug trafficking at the time of the issuance of the warrant. In this respect we note that just prior to the issuing of the warrant, a pen register placed on the defendant's telephone indicated that a substantial number of telephone calls had been made to individuals known by the police to be involved in narcotics trafficking. Specifically, there were many telephone calls both to and from premises which were known to be primarily utilized for the...