Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Lasak, J.), rendered November 26, 2012, convicting him of assault in the second degree, upon his plea of guilty, and imposing sentence.
Ordered that the matter is remitted to the Supreme Court, Queens County, for a hearing on the defendant’s motion to withdraw his plea of guilty, for which the defendant shall be appointed new counsel, and for a new determination of the motion thereafter, and the appeal is held in abeyance pending receipt of the Supreme Court’s report, which shall be filed with all convenient speed.
Prior to the imposition of sentence upon the defendant’s conviction of assault in the second degree, the defendant moved to withdraw his plea of guilty to that charge on the ground that his assigned counsel had forced him to take the plea by telling him that he would receive a much greater sentence if he rejected the plea. At the sentencing hearing, assigned counsel denied the accusation, which effectively made her a witness against her client. She further expressed her opinion that the defendant’s plea of guilty had been validly entered.