The verdict was neither based on legally insufficient evidence nor against the weight of the evidence. Although defendant never explicitly admitted any advance knowledge of his cohorts' intent to commit a robbery, defendant confessed to knowingly driving them, and their loot, away from the robbery scene, and a rational jury could readily have concluded from this confession, and defendant's pre- and post-robbery conduct, that defendant, at the very least, joined the robbery in progress with intent that it be successfully completed (see, People v Dordal, 55 N.Y.2d 954; People v Jackson, 44 N.Y.2d 935; People v Keitt, 42 N.Y.2d 926).
Defendant being a participant in the underlying felony, his guilt of felony murder was clear (see, People v Hernandez, 82 N.Y.2d 309), because a felon fleeing in a speeding car that crashes and kills an innocent person is responsible for that obviously foreseeable consequence. For the same reason, it was not error to exclude a witness' statement bearing on police involvement in the crash, which was inadmissible hearsay in any event.
The issue of jurisdiction over this interstate felony murder was resolved by our decision in People v Nieves ( 205 A.D.2d 173).
Defendant's remaining contentions are largely unpreserved and without merit.
We perceive no abuse of sentencing discretion (see, People v Delgado, 80 N.Y.2d 780), and find no reasonable possibility that defendant's sentence was affected by the prosecutor's improper remark about defendant's "audacity to demand a jury trial."
Concur — Ross, J.P., Nardelli, Williams, Tom and Mazzarelli, JJ.