People v. Eli

—Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (William Wetzel, J.), rendered August 18, 1997, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of assault in the first and second degrees, and sentencing him to concurrent terms of 3 to 9 years and 1 to 3 years, respectively, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied defendant’s mistrial motion following the prosecutor’s opening remarks mistakenly attributing to defendant the exculpatory postarrest statement of another, since these remarks caused no prejudice to defendant. Defendant’s claim of prejudice resulting from an ethnic reference in the…