People v. Mathieu

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Bruce Allen, J.), entered on or about February 5, 2004, which denied defendant’s CPL 440.10 motion to vacate a judgment of the same court (Jay Gold, J.), rendered May 28, 1997, convicting him, after a jury trial, of burglary in the first degree, and sentencing him, as a second violent felony offender, to a term of 10 years, unanimously affirmed.

The court, which made detailed findings that are supported by the record, properly denied defendant’s motion to vacate judgment (see People v Satterfield, 66 NY2d 796 , 799-780 [1985]). The submissions on the motion, taken together with the trial record, establish that defendant received effective assistance of counsel (see People v Benevento, 91 NY2d 708 , 713-714 [1998]; see also Strickland v Washington, 466 US 668 [1984]). Even if we were to conclude that trial counsel should have introduced additional evidence in support of a theory of third-party culpability, we would find that the omitted evidence was exceedingly weak (cf. People v Primo, 96 NY2d 351 [2001]), and that its absence did not prejudice defendant’s defense or