People v. Baskerville

457 N.E.2d 752 (1983)

Purchase the Printed Copy at bsmsphd.com

Nature of the Case

To access this section all you need to do is click here and register.

Facts

The base exchange at the United States Air Force Base in Plattsburgh was robbed. The robber took nearly $30,000 from the cashier's safe, which he stuffed into a plastic bag taken from a trash can near the cashier's cage. No witness could identify the robber, who wore a hooded sweatshirt and used a towel to conceal the lower half of his face. Another towel was wrapped around the robber's arm, but one of the witnesses testified that she saw a black object inside the towel, which she thought was a gun. Another witness testified that when a woman approached the cashier's window in the exchange office, the robber raised his towel-wrapped arm, pointed it at the woman, and threatened to kill her. Within half an hour after the robbery, D, an airman at the base, remarked to an acquaintance that the base exchange had been robbed. About three hours later, D paid a Plattsburgh car dealer almost $ 6,000 in cash as a down payment on a new car. The money handed over was still bundled in wrappers that were dated, initiated, and stamped with an official seal of the base exchange. During that weekend D spent close to an additional $2,000 on other purchases. D was arrested. A search turned up an additional $1,100 and a plastic bag of the type used to carry away the money. Clothing matching that described by the witnesses was found, including sneakers with a green stripe. The design and wear characteristics of one of D's sneakers closely conformed to those of a footprint found in a sandy area adjacent to the exchange shortly after the robbery and that the plastic bag in D's room was of the identical formula and manufacturer used by the exchange. D lied about the source of the money but when confronted with the exchange money wrappers, D related an entirely different story. D said he borrowed $5,540 in cash from a loan shark who delivered the money to him behind the gas station on the base during the late morning of the robbery. The two days preceding the robbery D had sought to obtain money from various financial institutions and charities in the Plattsburgh area by stating that he needed the money to ransom his niece, who had purportedly been abducted. D conceded at trial that he had concocted that story in order to obtain money for the down payment on the car. The Judge charged the jury: 'It is sufficient * * * if the victim is made to believe the object to be such a weapon or if the defendant holds or wraps the object in such a way as to create the impression that he is holding a pistol, revolver or other firearm.' D was found guilty of both robbery in the first degree and criminal possession of stolen property in the first-degree. D appealed.