Appeal by the defendant, by permission, from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Chin-Brandt, J.), dated March 11, 2010, which summarily denied, without a hearing, his motion pursuant to CPL 440.10 to vacate a judgment of the same court (Lebowitz, J.), rendered April 5, 2000, adjudicating him a youthful offender, upon his plea of guilty to attempted robbery in the third degree.
Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, and the matter is remitted to the Supreme Court, Queens County, for a new determination of the defendant’s motion on the merits.
On February 8, 2000, the defendant pleaded guilty to attempted robbery in the third degree. He was adjudicated a youthful offender on April 5, 2000, and sentenced to a five-year period of probation. The defendant did not appeal from that judgment. More than eight years later, in June 2008, the defendant was convicted in federal court of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, and sentenced, as a career offender under section 4B1.1 (a) of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The defendant claims that the determination that he was a career offender, which served to enhance the sentence imposed on his federal conviction, was predicated in part on his prior youthful offender adjudication. In September 2009, the defendant moved pursuant to CPL 440.10 to vacate the judgment adjudicating him a youthful offender, alleging that his attorney had erroneously advised him at the time of his plea that a youthful offender adjudication could not be treated as a predicate felony conviction to enhance any future sentence. The Supreme Court summarily denied the defendant’s motion, concluding that it was procedurally barred by CPL 440.10 (2) (c) because he had failed to appeal from the judgment adjudicating him a youthful offender.
CPL 440.10 (2) (c) provides that a court must deny a defendant’s motion to vacate his or her conviction where, “[although