DECISION ORDER
ORDERED that the judgments are modified, as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, by vacating the sentences imposed and the adjudication of the defendant as a second violent felony offender, and substituting therefor an adjudication of the defendant as a second felony offender; as so modified, the judgments are affirmed, and the matter is remitted to the County Court, Suffolk County, for resentencing of the defendant as a second felony offender.
The defendant failed to object to his adjudication as a second violent felony offender on the ground that the crime which formed the predicate violent felony did not constitute a violent felony offense pursuant to Penal Law § 70.02(1). Therefore, his claim is not preserved for appellate review (see People v. Lemon, 62 N.Y.2d 745, 746; People v. Bennett, 162 A.D.2d 694; People v. Wolmart, 140 A.D.2d 733). However, we reach this issue in the exercise of our interest of justice jurisdiction. The defendant's prior conviction in North Carolina was equivalent to the crime of burglary in the third degree in New York, a nonviolent felony (see Penal Law §§ 70.02[c], 140.20). Accordingly, it was error to sentence the defendant as a second violent felony offender (see People v. Bennett, supra).
FEUERSTEIN, J.P., KRAUSMAN, LUCIANO, TOWNES and COZIER, JJ., concur.