People v. Vasquez

—Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Efrain Alvarado, J.), rendered May 18, 1999, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal sale of a controlled substance in or near school grounds, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 6 to 12 years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant was not deprived of a fair trial when the court sustained the prosecutor’s objection to defendant’s summation remark urging the jury to draw a negative inference from the “ghost” officer’s failure to testify. There was no evidence that the ghost was in a position to observe any aspect of the…