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Supreme Court, New York County, July 21, 2008
APPEARANCES OF COUNSEL
Ernest H. Hammer, New York City, for defendant. Bridget G. Brennan, Special Narcotics Prosecutor, New York City, for plaintiff.
{**20 Misc 3d at 907} OPINION OF THE COURT
James D. Gibbons, J.
Defendant Jose Baez, originally charged by felony complaint, waived a hearing on the complaint and was held for the action of the grand jury. He then waived indictment and consented to be prosecuted by superior court information. A superior court information was filed, to which he pleaded guilty. Baez now moves to withdraw his guilty plea, dismiss the superior court information, and vacate his waiver of indictment on the ground that he was not held for the action of the grand jury on the charge named in his indictment waiver and alleged in the superior court information. The Special Narcotics Prosecutor rejoins that Baez was indeed held for the action of the grand jury on that charge.
The parties' contentions require analysis of what it means, in the view of the Court of Appeals, to hold a defendant for the action of the grand jury where, as here, the defendant has waived a hearing on a felony complaint. The Court of Appeals's understanding of the "holding" process supports Baez's assertion that he was never held with respect to the charge [*2]named in his indictment waiver and alleged in the superior court information. The waiver was therefore accepted without jurisdiction, and the superior court information is consequently also jurisdictionally defective. Baez's motion is granted in full.
I set forth the procedural backdrop:
On the night of November 19, 2007, State Police investigators watched Baez carry a black bag into 80 Bennett Avenue in Washington Heights. The bag was seized and found to contain more than $500,000 in cash, claimed by the Special Narcotics Prosecutor to be the proceeds of narcotics traffic. By a one-count felony complaint filed November 20, 2007, Baez was charged based on these events with money laundering in the second degree.
New York's money laundering statutes are substantially modeled on their modern federal counterparts (see Donnino, Supp Practice Commentary, McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 39, Penal Law art 470, 2008 Pocket Part, at 192), and, like their{**20 Misc 3d at 908} chief federal analogue, allow for the prosecution of money laundering under what are sometimes termed "concealment" and "promotion" theories (see generally United States v Garcia-Torres, 341 F3d 61, 65 [1st Cir 2003] [contrasting theories in the federal statute]; United States v Bolden, 325 F3d 471,
486-487 & nn 19, 20 [4th Cir 2003] [same]).[FN1] The felony complaint charge against Baez, brought under Penal Law

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