Opinion
May 14, 1996
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Leslie Crocker Snyder, J.).
The trial court did not denigrate defense counsel by curtailing his irrelevant, and extremely lengthy, questioning of the prosecution's witnesses. Defense counsel repeatedly pursued improper lines of questioning and ignored the court's rulings to desist, and as the court's comments were not harsh, and it specifically instructed the jury that such exchanges were not to be considered in their deliberations, defendant was not deprived of a fair trial ( People v. Gonzalez, 38 N.Y.2d 208; People v Ross, 214 A.D.2d 304).
Defendant's claim that he was deprived of his right to appellate review due to an inadequate record must be rejected, since he failed to demonstrate that he was prejudiced by the failure to record the sidebars or by the missing pages from two witnesses' testimony ( see, People v. Harrison, 85 N.Y.2d 794, 796). Moreover, these claims are unavailing in light of defendant's failure to request that the sidebars be transcribed, to accurately settle the transcript before bringing his appeal, and to meet his burden of showing that the proceedings could not be reconstructed by alternate methods ( see, supra; People v Andino, 183 A.D.2d 834, lv denied 80 N.Y.2d 901).
We find that defendant was not prejudiced by the timing of the court's dismissal of the conspiracy counts ( see, People v Brown, 83 N.Y.2d 791).
We have reviewed defendant's remaining contentions, including that the sentence is excessive, and find them to be without merit.
Concur — Wallach, J.P., Ross, Williams and Mazzarelli, JJ.