Appeals from a judgment of the County Court
Defendant was implicated in a string of burglaries committed in December 2009, and quickly entered into a cooperation and plea agreement with the People wherein he admitted committing certain crimes and represented that he could secure his brother’s recorded admission to an unrelated murder. Assuming that defendant succeeded, the People agreed to do nothing beyond take his efforts into consideration and make “any [c]ourt . . . aware of his cooperation.” Defendant did not succeed and, in 2011, he was charged in two indictments with various offenses.
Despite a pending motion to determine, among other things, the scope and enforceability of the cooperation and plea agreement, defendant elected to waive his right to appeal and plead guilty to the indictments in their entirety. County Court, in return, agreed to impose an aggregate prison sentence of no more than eight years. Defendant subsequently filed a motion to withdraw his pleas, citing the People’s alleged failure to abide by the cooperation and plea agreement. County Court denied the motion and sentenced defendant, as a second felony offender, to an aggregate prison term of eight years, to be followed by postrelease supervision of five years. These appeals ensued.
We affirm. Defendant first contends that County Court abused its discretion in declining to grant his motion to withdraw his guilty pleas. “Whether a defendant should be permitted to withdraw his or her plea rests within the sound discretion of the trial court and, generally, such a motion should not be granted absent a showing of innocence, fraud or mistake in the inducement” (People v Galvan, 107 AD3d 1058, 1058-1059 [2013] [citations omitted], lv denied 21 NY3d 1042 [2013]; accord People v Barton, 113 AD3d 927, 928 [2014]). Defendant elected to plead guilty rather than pursue his claim that the People had made an oral sentencing promise as part of the cooperation and plea agreement and, indeed, he acknowledged during the plea colloquy that any previous sentencing promise had been withdrawn and was no longer valid. The record thus reflects that defendant’s guilty pleas were knowing and voluntary and, as such, County Court properly denied his motion to withdraw them.
Defendant’s remaining argument is that his constitutional
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.