94 A.D.2d 705 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1983
— Appeal by defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Donnelly, J.), rendered June 16,1981, convicting him of grand larceny in the third degree and offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree (seven counts), upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence. Judgment modified, on the law, by vacating the sentence imposed. As so modified, judgment affirmed, and matter remitted to Criminal Term for resentencing before another Justice. The defendant was indicted by a Kings County Grand Jury and charged with grand larceny in the second degree and 28 counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree. Defendant, a licensed physician, maintained an office at the East Flatbush Center, a private clinic in Brooklyn, at which he provided certain care and services primarily to indigent persons, some of whom were insured under Medicaid. When a patient arrived at the medical center, the receptionist customarily filled in the top portion of the official Medicaid invoices by inserting the patient’s name and Medicaid number, the treating physician’s name and Medicaid provided number and the physician’s address, specialty and telephone number. After treating each patient, defendant would complete the invoice by describing the services rendered and then signing the certification attesting that he rendered the services. The invoices subsequently were used to obtain Medicaid reimbursement. The charges against defendant arose from his submission of certain of such invoices to the New York City Department of Social Services seeking Medicaid reimbursement for services allegedly never rendered. A principal focus of defendant’s appeal from his convictions is the claim there was no jurisdiction to prosecute him for these crimes in Kings County because the invoices were filed in New York County and the payments were received in Queens and Nassau Counties. We conclude otherwise. CPL 20.40 (subd 1, par [a]) provides that a county has jurisdiction of the trial of an offense if conduct occurred within the county sufficient to establish an element of the crime. Accordingly, geographical jurisdiction to prosecute is a question of fact (Matter ofSteingut v Gold, 42 NY2d 311; People v Hetenyi, 304 NY 80). However, since jurisdiction is not itself an element of the crime, it need only be established by a preponderance of the evidence (Matter ofSteingut v Gold, supra, p 316; People v Tullo, 34 NY2d 712). What is required is that jurisdiction be fairly and reasonably inferred from all the facts and circumstances in evidence (Matter of Steingut v Gold, supra, p 316). On the record before us, there was sufficient proof of conduct in Kings County to establish elements of each crime of which defendant was convicted. The elements of the crime of offering a false instrument in the first degree are (1) knowledge that the instrument is false, (2) intent to defraud the State or any of its subdivisions, and (3) presentation of the instrument for filing (Penal Law, § 175.35; see People v Weinfeld, 65 AD2d 911). While it is undisputed that the incriminating invoices, which constitute written instruments within the meaning of section 175.35 of the Penal Law (see People v Bel Air Equip. Corp., 39 NY2d 48), were completed and signed by defendant at the clinic in Kings County, the acts of completion are not of themselves elements of the crime. What they do suffice to show — in view of the other evidence in the case — is that defendant had knowledge of the falsity of the invoices when he completed them in Kings County and that he had the intent to defraud while in Kings County (see People v Tullo, supra; see, also, People v Schlatter, 55 AD2d 922). Thus, there can be no question that jurisdiction to prosecute the false instrument charges existed in that county. We turn then to the charge of larceny by false pretenses. The elements of that crime are (1) an intent to deprive an owner of property, (2) the making of a false representation, (3) knowledge of the falsity, (4) obtaining the property of another, and (5) that the owner of the property was induced by the representa