People v. Reeves

• Decision Date: 22 January 2015
• Parties: The PEOPLE of The State of New York, Respondent, v. Rose REEVES, Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

124 A.D.3d 1068
1 N.Y.S.3d 547

The PEOPLE of The State of New York, Respondent,
v.
Rose REEVES, Appellant.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, New York.

Jan. 22, 2015.

1 N.Y.S.3d 547

Michael P. Graven, Owego, for appellant, and appellant pro se.

Weeden A. Wetmore, District Attorney, Elmira, for respondent.

Before: LAHTINEN, J.P., McCARTHY, ROSE, EGAN JR. and CLARK, JJ.

CLARK, J.

124 A.D.3d 1068

Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Schuyler County (Argetsinger, J.), rendered January 13, 2011, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crimes

1 N.Y.S.3d 548

of grand larceny in the second degree and forgery in the second degree (three counts).

After defendant stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the victim, her elderly sister-in-law, she was charged with grand larceny in the second degree. Defendant was also charged with three counts of forgery in the second degree as the result of endorsing a check payable to the victim, as well as two documents purportedly signed by the victim that enabled defendant to access and transfer funds held in a certificate of deposit. Following a jury trial, defendant was convicted as charged. County Court sentenced her to, among other things, five years of probation that included six months of electronic home monitoring. County Court further directed her to pay restitution in the amount of $361,169. Defendant appeals, and we now affirm.

Initially, defendant failed to renew her motion to dismiss the charges at the close of her proof and, as such, her contention that the verdict is not supported by legally sufficient evidence is unpreserved for our review (see People v. Kolupa, 13 N.Y.3d 786, 787, 887 N.Y.S.2d 536, 916 N.E.2d 430 [2009] ; People v. Valverde, 122 A.D.3d 1074, 1075, 996 N.Y.S.2d 772 [2014] ). We will nevertheless determine whether all the elements of the charged crimes were proven beyond a reasonable doubt in weighing the probative force of conflicting testimony and the strength of conflicting inferences to assess whether the verdict is against the weight of the evidence (see People v. Danielson, 9 N.Y.3d 342, 348–349, 849 N.Y.S.2d 480, 880 N.E.2d 1 [2007] ; People v. Valverde, 122 A.D.3d at 1075, 996 N.Y.S.2d 772 ).

In that regard, defendant assisted the victim as she declined physically in the several years prior to her death and, as such, was named as a joint owner of the victim's checking account

124 A.D.3d 1069

and was granted a limited power of attorney that did not include any authority over banking transactions. Joseph Fazzary is an attorney and was very familiar with both defendant and the victim, not only because he was their nephew, but also because he had employed defendant for several years and had assisted the victim with her financial affairs.¹ Fazzary was named as executor of the victim's estate and, upon her death in 2008, began collecting information about her assets. In so doing, he uncovered documentary evidence that defendant had siphoned off hundreds of thousands of...