Appeals court upholds burglary conviction
Ruben Rodriguez is serving a 16-year prison sentence for the armed incident in September 2014.
A state appeals court has unanimously upheld the 2015 conviction of a former Plattekill resident for the armed burglary of a home in the town.
The decision, handed down Thursday, said Ruben Rodriguez’s appeal was denied in part because he waived his right to appeal when he pleaded guilty.
Rodriguez, 26, formerly of Forrest Park in Plattekill, was sentenced in July 2015 by Ulster County Judge Donald A. Williams to 16 years in state prison and five years of post-release supervision after pleading guilty in May of that year.
Rodriguez admitted that he and an accomplice, David Valenzuela, committed the burglary Sept. 22, 2014, on Route 44/55 in Plattekill while in possession of a loaded gun.
In exchange for his cooperation, Valenzuela, 30, who had no prior criminal history, was allowed to plead guilty to second-degree burglary and was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in state prison.
Rodriguez held the gun as he and Valenzuela entered and ransacked the residence and stole various items, a press release from the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office said at the time.
The two men used a crowbar to pry open the door of the residence, authorities said.
After the burglary, Rodriguez and Valenzuela ran to a get-away vehicle, a gold Chrysler Pacifica driven by Rodriguez’s girlfriend, that was parked in an adjacent driveway, District Attorney Holley Carnright said. The owner of the residence pulled into the driveway, blocking the get-away vehicle from leaving, but Rodriguez threatened him with the gun and fired a shot into the front passenger door of the man’s vehicle, authorities said. No one was struck by the shot.
After their arrests, Rodriguez and Valenzuela gave statements to police admitting their involvement in the crime, the District Attorney’s Office said.
On appeal, Rodriguez said there was no proof he entered the dwelling with a deadly weapon, according to the decision from the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Third Judicial Department.
In its decision, the court wrote: “Inasmuch as defendant’s conviction was the result of a guilty plea and not a trial, he is essentially challenging the factual sufficiency of the plea allocution ... that he unlawfully entered a dwelling and possessed a loaded gun at the time of the crime.”
Rodriguez, a repeat felony offender, was convicted of grand larceny in Orange County in 2011 for an auto theft and served time in state prison for that crime, according to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision website.