Failure to Include Restitution in Plea Agreement Required that the Sentencing Court Give the Defendant the Opportunity to Withdraw Her Plea Before Including Restitution in the Sentence
The Second Department determined County Court erred when it, in the absence of a prior agreement, imposed restitution as part of defendant’s sentence without giving the defendant the opportunity to withdraw her plea:
Although a court is free to reserve the right to order restitution as part of a plea agreement, the County Court did not do so here. Instead, at the very end of the sentencing proceeding, after imposing the agreed-upon terms, the court briefly turned to other matters prior to stating that it was also signing restitution judgment orders.
The defendant contends, among other things, that, before adding restitution to the sentence, the County Court should first have given her the option to withdraw her plea of guilty or to accept a sentence including restitution. Preliminarily, we note that, in light of the fact that the court did not give the defendant a sufficient opportunity to withdraw her plea of guilty before imposing restitution, the defendant’s claim is not subject to the preservation requirement … . Moreover, we agree with the defendant that the County Court erred … . People v Molinaro, 2015 NY Slip Op 01820, 2nd Dept 3-4-15