People v Steffens, 2018 NY Slip Op 05702 [164 AD3d 616]

August 8, 2018

Appellate Division, Second Department

[*1]

The People of the State of New York, Respondent,

v

Iveth Steffens, Appellant.

Paul Skip Laisure, New York, NY (Anders Nelson of counsel), for appellant.

Richard A. Brown, District Attorney, Kew Gardens, NY (John M. Castellano, Johnnette Traill, and William H. Branigan of counsel; Victoria Randall on the memorandum), for respondent.

Appeal by the defendant, as limited by her motion, from a sentence of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Dorothy Chin-Brandt, J.), imposed February 4, 2016, upon her plea of guilty, on the ground that the sentence was excessive.

Ordered that the sentence is affirmed.

The defendant’s purported waiver of her right to appeal was invalid ( see People v Sanders , 25 NY3d 337 [2015]; People v Brown , 122 AD3d 133 [2014]). The Supreme Court’s limited colloquy, which lumped together the waiver of the right to appeal with a separate waiver of indictment, did not ensure the defendant’s understanding of the distinction between the right to appeal and the other rights that are automatically forfeited upon a plea of guilty ( see People v Laboy , 153 AD3d 1363 [2017]; see also People v Herring , 150 AD3d 1148 , 1148 [2017]; People v Contreras , 112 AD3d 649 , 649 [2013]). Thus, the purported waiver does not preclude review of the defendant’s excessive sentence claim. However, the sentence imposed was not excessive ( see People v Suitte , 90 AD2d 80 [1982]). Balkin, J.P., Chambers, Roman, Maltese and Connolly, JJ., concur..