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A person threatens you with a knife and asks for your money. Is that person guilty of robbery or extortion? Or is it both? A study discusses a case which illustrates the difference between robbery and extortion.

On March 11, 1974, George Woods was charged with robbery in the second degree, grand larceny in the second degree, grand larceny in the third degree and burglary in the third degree. He was found guilty by the Trial Court of 2nd degree robbery. Unhappy with the criminal verdict, Woods appealed to the Court of Appeals for a review of the case.

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We all know that taking someone else’s property is a crime. We have different names for the different situations in which it might occur. Shoplifting, robbery, burglary, etc. But what if a person took property that was originally his? Would it still be a crime? A source tells of two interesting cases reviewed by the Court of Appeals that will answer this question.

The first case involves Edward Reid. He was charged with murder, 2nd degree robbery, and illegal possession of a weapon. He was found not innocent of the first and guilty of the last two. According to reports, he and his stepbrother, Andre McLean, approached three men in a street in Bronx. Both Reid and McLean were armed with pistols. Reid asked the three men to return the money they owed him for certain drug transactions. Two of the men paid up but the third man said he had no money on him. He asked Reid if they could go up to his apartment to get cash. As they walked up the stairs to the apartment, Reid took McLean’s pistol and told him to hand over the cash that he was holding for Reid. McLean handed over $300 and rushed at Reid. A shot was fired and McLean was hit in the chest. He died not soon after of the wound. Reid then ran away.

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Late on an October night in 2007, a 15 year-old boy was sleeping over at his brother’s apartment in the City of Ithaca in Tompkins County. Joezaya Berrios who was a family friend was also sleeping over. The boy was sleeping on the sofa in the family room and Joezaya Berrios was on the floor of the dining room. Galvin Lawton and Trevor B. Porter knocked on the door of the apartment where they were staying. Ms. Berrios was acquainted with both Mr. Lawton and Mr. Porter so she opened the door. The men entered the apartment without being invited. Ms. Berrios was not too concerned about letting them in since she knew the men. She went back to the dining room and laid back down to go to sleep again. She told the men to keep down the noise because everyone was sleeping. Once she had laid back down, she heard Mr. Lawton and Mr. Porter talking to the boy. She stated at trial that she heard them ask the boy who was 15 years old and barely five feet tall if he was a boy or a girl. He told them that he was a boy. It was very dark in the room and the boy stated later that he could not see the men’s faces as they towered over him. Mr. Lawton asked the boy in vulgar street terms if he engaged in oral sex. The boy told the men, who were both in their mid-twenties, that he only gave oral sex to boys who were his own age.

Mr. Lawton then lifted the boy up from the couch, by grabbing him under his arms and forced him to perform oral sex on him. Mr. Lawton then forced the boy to give Mr. Porter oral sex. While the boy was performing oral sex on Mr. Porter, Mr. Lawton removed the boy’s pants and began to have anal intercourse with him. The boy complained that it hurt and ran upstairs to wake up his brother. After telling his brother what had transpired, the police were called to the location. Both Mr. Lawton and Mr. Porter were arrested and charged with Criminal sexual act in the first degree and criminal sexual act in the third degree and sexual abuse in the first degree. Both men were convicted. Mr. Porter was sentenced as a second violent felony offender and received a prison term of ten years with ten years of postrelease supervision.

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Nicholas Puner graduated from Harvard with a law degree. He married a woman and stayed married to her for 35 years. No one suspected that throughout his marriage, he was living a second life. By his own admission he would have homosexual encounters in secret during the entire thirty five year marriage. His second life was laid bare when he was convicted for sodomy in the third degree in June of 2000. He was 56 years old at the time of his arrest for sodomizing two fifteen year old boys whom he met in an online internet chat room named “Westchester M4M.” On September 7, 2000, Mr. Puner was sentenced to sixty days in jail and five years of probation. He was listed as a level three sex offender by order of New York states sex Offender Registration Act otherwise known as SORA. The New York Sex Offender Registry assigns points to an offender to rate his risk to the public of committing the same or similar crimes in the future. Mr. Puner was evaluated at 115 points which makes him a level three sex offender. At sentencing, Mr. Puner took full responsibility for his actions and vowed to never again abuse a child.

Mr. Puner served his sixty days in jail and was then released on probation. During his probationary period, he approached a person whom he believed to be a minor male child on the internet. On January 26, 2001, Mr. Puner had only been on probation for five months when he approached this person. What he did not know was that this person was an undercover police detective who was pretending to be an underage male. The police officer maintained a transcript of the instant messaging conversation in which the undercover investigator posed as a fourteen year old boy who was confused about his own sexuality. In the conversations, Mr. Puner discussed oral sex, masturbation, and penises with the child. At the time of this internet conversation, Mr. Puner was attending a sexual offender treatment program run by a psychologist. Mr. Puner’s probation was revoked and he was remanded back to jail. He received a sentence of sixteen months to four years imprisonment. On February 6, 2004 he was released from prison and on January 17, 2005 he had completed his parole supervision.

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Karl Ahlers is a sex offender. There is no argument about it. He was convicted in New Jersey and he was convicted in New York. In fact, in New York he was convicted of thirty two counts of sexually based crimes against children. He is a sexually violent offender. Karl Ahlers was incarcerated in New York for: two counts of sodomy in the first degree, one count of sodomy in the second degree, one count of sodomy in the third degree, two counts of sexual abuse in the first degree and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

Mr. Ahlers is due to be released from prison and it is the job of the Board of Examiners of Sex Offenders to prepare a risk assessment pending Mr. Ahlers’ release. The Board of Examiners of Sex Offenders must evaluate the risk that Mr. Ahlers is likely to commit a similar type offense again. While studies show that sex offenders as a whole are more likely to have difficulty reentering society; pedophiles, or sex offenders who prefer to victimize children, are the most likely to reoffend. All of these aspects must be evaluated by the Board of Examiners of Sex Offenders. The Board of Examiners of Sex Offenders will also tally points for each type of risk or offense that Mr. Ahlers has committed and been convicted of in order to place a rating on the risk that his release poses on the public. The risk assessments prepared by the Board of Examiners of Sex Offenders, follow strict guidelines for classification. They are defined in the Sex Offender Registration Act of New York.

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On November 27, 1996, a fifteen year old girl and her friend went to visit another friend at an apartment leased by a man named Maler in the Village of Walton in Delaware County. Once in the apartment, the girl left her friends in the living room and went into the kitchen. There she was met by Steven Alford, one of the residents of the apartment who had followed her in to the kitchen. She began talking to him and they moved to a back bedroom of the apartment. The girl stated that Mr. Alford then started to take her shirt off. She stated that she told him not too, but Mr. Alford continued. The victim states that Mr. Alford then put his arm around her waist and forced her onto the bed. Although, the room had no door but just a towel in the door frame, the victim stated that she froze and did not cry out because of her fear.

The victim stated that Mr. Alford then removed her clothing and his, pushed her down onto the bed and had forcible sexual intercourse with her against her will. The victim testified in court that she never cried out because the music in the apartment was so loud that she did not think that anyone would hear her. She was also worried that she would anger her attacker and he would hurt her. When the rape was over, the victim testified that Mr. Alford got dressed and told her that he would kill her and her family if anyone ever found out.

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After a night out at a tavern in Peekskill, a young woman dropped her friend off at home and headed to her own home west on the Bear Mountain Parkway. It was a dark road and she noticed a car moving up fast from behind her. The car started to flash its lights on and off. The young woman pulled her car to the side to allow the other car to pass. Rather than passing, as it pulled alongside her car, the driver ran his car into the side of the woman’s car. The two drivers exchanged angry words and pulled off of the roadway. As the young woman got out of her car to look at the damage, she was grabbed from behind by the male driver of the other car. He shined a flashlight into her eyes and covered her mouth with his hand. He pushed her onto the front seat of her car. The woman fought her attacker with anything she could grab in the car. She hit him with a window scraper and bit him on the hand. The attacker still managed to unbutton her coat and jeans and pull her jeans and panties down to her knees. He put his hand between her legs and began to fondle her in a sexual manner. The frightened girl told him that she had a venereal disease hoping to scare him off. It worked. He removed his hand, got up and told her that he was sorry. He drove off at a high rate of speed. The terrified girl re-dressed and drove home. Upon arriving at her home, she told her mother about the attack and reported the assault to the local police. She was able to give a detailed report of the incident, a description of her attacker, and a description of the car that he had driven.

The police began their investigation by showing the victim several photographs of suspects. She was unable to identify anyone in any of the photographs as the man who had attacked her. The Detective in charge of the case, Officer Joseph Valenchis received a telephone call from an Officer Culhane from the Somers Police Barracks who told him that they were investigating a similar crime which had occurred in their jurisdiction. In that case, a young woman was driving home late at night when a car approached her from behind flashing its lights. When she pulled her car to the side to let him pass, he struck her car. When she did not pull over, he attempted to run her vehicle off of the roadway. She still would not pull over and she did not lose control of her vehicle. She did get his license plate number from the back bumper of his car and reported the incident to the local police. That license tag showed that the car belonged to a man named Edward Dziedzic.

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On May 16, 1996 a young bride was married in a Catholic Church Mass in Argentina. The bride was thirty-five years of age at the time of her marriage. She was a virgin on her wedding night. The new husband brought his bride back to the United States after the wedding and pursuant to his religious beliefs; a Jewish wedding ceremony was performed that October. The bride is a devout Catholic who is very close to her family and lived at home with her parents until her marriage. She was a kindergarten teacher when she lived in Argentina with her parents. Once she moved to New York with her husband, she was an educational consultant for Scholastic.

The husband was 37 years old when the couple married and had lived apart from his parents since college. He had experienced other romantic involvements prior to his marriage. Although, he was Jewish, he was not a practicing religious person. From the beginning, it was clear that there was going to be serious cultural differences between the two. What was not expected at least by the new bride, was that her new husband was going to begin to exhibit inappropriate, controlling, and abusive behaviors toward her. Ultimately, he began to demonstrate strange preferences.

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In 1996, a Brooklyn man who was accused of committing acts of Domestic Abuse against his wife was arrested, charged, and as a condition of bail, was issued a command by the court that he attend a domestic violence counseling program. He applied to the court that he felt that the condition of the domestic violence counseling program was unreasonable. The suggestion was that because he had not been convicted of domestic violence, that requiring treatment for domestic violence offenses presumed guilt of the offense that he was only charged with. The court disagreed and denied his motion.

The judge stated that his justification in requiring the father to attend domestic violence training had nothing to do with a supposition of guilt, rather it was a way of reminding the subject that he was under the control of the court until trial. The judge stated that statutory language that is used to establish bail guidelines states that the court may deem any other conditions as it sees appropriate. He views this language to as authorizing the court to establish as a reasonable bail condition, attendance at a domestic violence program.

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The Integrated Domestic Violence Court of the State of New York in Onondaga County decided on December 23, 2010 that in response to a Memorandum of Law request dated December 20, 2010, which requested a DNA test be ordered to determine paternity of the child in question, that the test would be ordered. The issue of law in this situation is determining the paternity of the child in question. Because that determination in this situation, would help to determine a course of action for the Integrated Domestic Violence Court to address.

The Integrated Domestic Violence Court is a part of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. It was created with respect to the Chief Judge of the City of New York to handle cases involving domestic violence crimes. Not all crimes qualify as domestic violence, but those that do need to be addressed in many cases in a completely different manner than those which are not. The Chief Judge has the authority to regulate the courts of New York. That means that the Chief Judge has the right to reassign any case that involves any type of domestic violence and reassign it to the Integrated Domestic Violence Court. Further, if there is more than one case pending in the New York court systems; they can all be consolidated into one case before the same judge, in the same hearing. The ability to combine all pending cases in to one case, enables the judge who is hearing a case to get an overall picture of the problems that are currently facing the family in question. The actions ordered by the court can then take in to consideration the totality of the circumstances which are present and enable the court to determine a course of action that is in the best interests of the child an the advancement of the administration of suitable justice.

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