PRESS RELEASE
FROM: HOLLEY CARNRIGHT, DISTRICT ATTORNEY
DATE: JULY 31, 2014
The
Appellate Division, Third Department has today unanimously affirmed the June
20, 2012 conviction of Eric Moon upon a plea of guilty convicting him of two
counts of assault in the second degree, a class D violent felony.
Defendant’s
conviction stems from an incident in July, 2011 during which his co-defendants
shot into a crowd of people near the corner of Smith Avenue by the Kingston
Post Office with a shotgun and a rifle, seriously injuring two people who were
not the intended targets of the shooting.
Charged
in an indictment with multiple counts of assault, defendant pled guilty to two
counts of assault in the second degree in exchange for consecutive prison terms
of six years followed by five years of postrelease supervision on each
count.
On
appeal, defendant claimed that the indictment was both jurisdictionally defective
and facially insufficient. Those claims
were rejected by the Appellate Division.
Defendant’s additional contention that the imposition of consecutive
sentences was illegal because the victims’ injuries occurred simultaneously as
a result of a single attack, was also rejected by the reviewing court in light
of the fact that multiple shots were fired, defendant never claimed that the
same bullet injured both victims, and he agreed to the sentence as part of the
plea agreement.
On
appeal, the defendant is represented by Theodore J. Stein, Esq. of Woodstock,
New York. Assistant District Attorney Joan
Gudesblatt Lamb, Esq. handled the appeal for the District Attorney’s Office.
