People v. Cortez

—Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Murray Mogel, J.), rendered January 26, 1989, convicting defendant after jury trial of criminal sale and possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, and sentencing him to concurrent terms of 4 Vi to 9 years’ imprisonment, unanimously reversed, on the law, the sentence vacated, and the case remanded for a new trial.

The undercover police officer participating in the buy-and-bust operation on Manhattan’s Lower East Side radioed a description of two individuals involved in the sale of $30 worth of heroin to her. Minutes later, backup…