The District Court of Suffolk County, Sixth District found defendant M. Santulli, LLC guilty of using a premise to lease apartments without a Certificate of Occupancy as required under Brookhaven Town Code § 16-4. Defendant appealed, raising several challenges to the validity of the accusatory instrument, which included allegations by the town investigator based on his observations of the two occupied apartments on the premises.
The Supreme Court, Appellate Term affirmed the judgment of the district court finding the evidence produced at the nonjury trial was legally sufficient to establish defendant’s guilt. The factual allegations of the instrument were not overly conclusory; the non-existence of the appropriate certificate of occupancy along with proof of ownership were adequately established through the investigator’s testimony and personal knowledge of records searched.
The Supreme Court also found the District court properly denied defendant’s omnibus motion seeking to suppress evidence for lack of standing because the tenant, not the landlord, has the expectation of privacy in the leased premise. Defendants, absentee landlords, argued Town Code §82-C restricting search without warrant, the posting of “No Trespassing” signs, and the common areas of the premises used by the town investigator to gain access established an expectation of privacy. The court held the cited provision only stated that the Town Code itself could not be invoked as authority for entry, and thus did not eliminate any right of entry that would otherwise exist. The “No Trespassing” signs did not restrict the entry of “others” to be permitted to enter at the pleasure of the tenants, not of defendant. Additionally, the common areas were open to all those to whom the tenants wished to grant entry into the apartments, along with the structural aspects of the property.
Defendant also contended that the failure of the state of call the custodian of the town building records as a witness warranted reversal; the court rejected this argument as well, holding that a letter from the custodian certifying that certain documents replicated the complete contents of the file for the premises in question was admitted into evidence, and any error in the admission was harmless because it was conceded by the prosecution at trial that the documents did not, in fact, replicate the complete contents of the file.
State of New York v. M. Santulli, LLC, 2010 WL 3257801 (N.Y.Sup.App.Term 8/10/10).
The opinion can be accessed at: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ny-supreme-court-appellate-division/1535718.html
