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ALTHOUGH THERE WAS EVIDENCE DEFENDANT WAS SELLING TICKETS TO A SPORTING EVENT OUTSIDE THE ARENA, THE EVIDENCE DEFENDANT KNEW THE TICKETS WERE FORGED WAS LEGALLY INSUFFICIENT; DEFENDANT’S FLIGHT WHEN HE SAW THE POLICE WAS EQUIVOCAL (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department, reversing defendant’s convictions of criminal possession of a forged instrument, determined the evidence that defendant knew the Rangers tickets were forged was legally insufficient. The defendant briefly held an envelope containing the tickets and fled when he say the police:

Defendant approached Rangers fans outside of Madison Square Garden before a game, and at one point said “tickets, tickets.” He was on a cell phone call for a few seconds with an unspecified caller, the substance of which was not overheard. Defendant then met an unapprehended man, who gave defendant an envelope, which he immediately passed to a codefendant. The envelope, which the police recovered from the codefendant, contained a birthday card and the four forged Rangers tickets.

The evidence suggested that defendant sought to buy or sell tickets, but it did not show that he knew the tickets in question were forged. Even if the evidence established that defendant knowingly acted in concert with one or more other persons to sell tickets, in the circumstances presented this failed to support an inference that he knew he was selling forged tickets. His momentary possession of the envelope as he took it from one man and handed it to another, without looking inside or otherwise seeing the tickets, and the lack of any evidence of the codefendant’s conduct, besides his walking with defendant and receiving the tickets, does not suffice to establish that defendant knew the tickets were forged, either personally or while acting in concert with the codefendant.

Defendant’s flight from a plainclothes officer, whom defendant may have recognized, was too equivocal to prove that he knew the tickets inside the envelope were forged. There are other reasonable explanations for defendant’s flight, such as his potential awareness that it is unlawful to sell tickets, even if genuine, in the vicinity of the Garden … . People v Johnson, 2020 NY Slip Op 02708, First Dept 5-7-20

 

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