People v. Melette

Judgment of the Supreme Court, New York County (Rose Rubin, J.), rendered June 27, 1988, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of robbery in the third degree, for which he was sentenced as a second felony offender to 3Vz to 7 years, unanimously affirmed.

On September 1, 1987, as the complainant and her friends were eating lunch in a lower Manhattan restaurant, defendant removed the complainant’s purse from her chair. Feeling a brush against her shoulder, complainant was alerted to the theft, and managed to wrest her purse away from defendant. Defendant ran from the restaurant, followed by…