Weapon possession cases in Queens are prosecuted by an office that has built whole units around firearms, and you should expect the DA to treat your arrest as part of that priority. After arraignment at Queens Criminal Court on 125-01 Queens Boulevard, any felony count goes to a grand jury and, if an indictment follows, to Queens County Supreme Court, Criminal Term, in the Kew Gardens Courthouse and Annex. Spodek Law Group P.C. owes loyalty to only you, and the attorney on call at 212 300 5196 can start on the search and seizure issues the same day you reach out.
The weapon possession ladder under Penal Law article 265.
Criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree under Penal Law 265.01 is a class A misdemeanor, and criminal possession of a firearm under 265.01-b is a class E felony. Third degree possession under 265.02 is a class D felony, while second degree possession under 265.03 is a class C violent felony that reaches possession of any loaded firearm as well as possession of five or more firearms, and first degree possession under 265.04 is a class B violent felony. Which rung the DA reaches for depends on the object, whether it was loaded, how many weapons are alleged and where you were at the time, and each of those facts is one we test.
Home and business possession under 265.03(3).
Where the gun was found can change the charge itself, because subdivision (3) of Penal Law 265.03, the loaded-firearm provision, does not apply when the possession takes place in your home or place of business. A case built on a recovery from an apartment in Jackson Heights or a shop in Flushing can therefore look very different from one built on a gun found in a car on the Van Wyck. We pin down exactly where the recovery happened and who controlled that space, since the People carry the burden of proving that you possessed the weapon, and a gun found near several people raises real questions about whose it was.
The Queens DA units that build gun cases.
Gun investigations in Queens often begin inside the DA's Investigations Division. Its Crime Strategies and Intelligence Bureau, formed in 2021, focuses on gun violence, gun trafficking and ghost guns or 3D-printed firearms, and the Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau targets gangs and firearms dealers using court-authorized electronic monitoring. When a case grows out of a wiretap or a trafficking investigation, the discovery is voluminous and the timeline stretches, and we review every authorization and recording instead of accepting the summary in the complaint. A street arrest, by comparison, usually lands with one of the four Felony Trial Bureaus, which carry weapon possession on their felony dockets.
