People v Oliver (2019 NY Slip Op 03407) People v Oliver 2019 NY Slip Op 03407 Decided on May 2, 2019 Appellate Division, Third Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports. Decided and Entered: May 2, 2019 108527 [*1]THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, Respondent, vMICHAEL OLIVER, Appellant. Calendar Date: March 20, 2019 Before: Garry, P.J., Egan Jr., Devine, Aarons and Pritzker, JJ. Cynthia G. Kasnia, Poughkeepsie, for appellant. P. David Soares, District Attorney, Albany (Emily Schultz of counsel), for respondent. MEMORANDUM AND ORDER Egan Jr., J. Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Albany County (Herrick, J.), rendered December 1, 2014, convicting defendant upon his plea of guilty of the crimes of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first degree and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree. On December 3, 2013, members of various federal and state law enforcement agencies executed a search warrant at defendant's second-floor apartment located on Washington Avenue in the City of Albany. Upon execution of the warrant, police discovered more than eight ounces of cocaine in the apartment. Defendant was arrested at the scene and subsequently charged by indictment with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first degree and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree. As part of his omnibus motion, defendant moved to suppress the physical evidence obtained during the search. Following a Mapp hearing, County Court denied defendant's suppression motion. On the third day of trial, defendant pleaded guilty to the indictment. He was thereafter sentenced, as a nonviolent predicate offender, to a prison term of 16 years, to be followed by five years postrelease supervision, for his conviction of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first degree and a prison term of 10 years, to be followed by three years of postrelease supervision, for his conviction of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, with the sentences to run concurrently. Defendant now appeals. Defendant contends that County Court should have granted his motion to suppress the evidence seized because there was insufficient evidence contained in the search warrant application to establish the reliability of the confidential informant (hereinafter CI). We disagree. A search warrant issued by a judge is presumed to be valid (see People v Castillo, 80 NY2d 578, 585 [1992], cert denied 507 US 1033 [1993]; People v Brewer, 155 AD3d 1447, 1449 [2017]) and will be upheld as long as the application provides "sufficient information to support a reasonable belief that evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place" (People v Luciano, 152 AD3d 989, 991 [2017] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted], lv denied 30 NY3d [*2]1020 [2017]). Where a search warrant application is based upon information obtained from a CI, the application must demonstrate the veracity and/or reliability of the ...
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