Opinion
October 22, 1998
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Allen Alpert, J., at suppression hearing; Edwin Torres, J., at jury trial and sentence).
The hearing court properly denied the suppression motion. The totality of the chain of events gave the police officers reasonable suspicion justifying defendant's detention. The officers observation of defendant and the codefendant running down the street in the early morning hours with the codefendant carrying what appeared to be a woman's handbag, together with their nervous behavior and separation upon seeing the patrol car, defendant's furtive gesture to his waistband as if he were discarding something, the codefendant's voluntary statement that he found the handbag, and both defendants' inability, as sufficiently documented in the record, to explain where they found the bag, justified their brief detention in order to determine whether any crimes had just been reported in the vicinity ( see, People v. Hicks, 68 N.Y.2d 234).
We reject defendant's contention that, pursuant to Penal Law § 70.25 (2), the court was required to impose concurrent sentences for defendant's convictions under the counts involving the simultaneous attempted robberies of two of the victims. Defendant's accomplice liability for the conduct of his codefendant in attempting to take property is a separate act apart from his own criminal conduct, such that consecutive sentences may be imposed ( People v. Willard, 226 A.D.2d 1014, lv denied sub nom. People v. Johnson, 89 N.Y.2d 924; People v. Williams, 141 A.D.2d 783, lv denied 72 N.Y.2d 1051). We perceive no abuse of sentencing discretion.
Concur — Nardelli, J. P., Rubin, Tom and Mazzarelli, JJ.