People v. Torres

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Albert Williams, J.), rendered October 30, 1991, convicting defendant, after jury trial, of criminal sale and possession of a controlled substance in the third *414degree and sentencing him, as a predicate felon, to concurrent terms of 4 Vi to 9 years imprisonment, unanimously reversed, on the law, and a new trial is ordered.

Defendant’s conviction was based primarily on the extensive testimony of an undercover police detective to whom, it was alleged, defendant had sold for $20 a glassine envelope containing cocaine. At the commencement of trial, the…