How Many Years Can You Get for Second-Degree Burglary in New York?

These selected New York City reports do not support the former five-to-fifteen-year observed range. Wheeler’s fifteen-year burglary sentence was vacated with the conviction in June 2025. Catullo’s ten years covers two indictments without a per-count allocation, while Morales’s twenty-seven-year block covers numerous offenses. Torres and Williams each have a reported five-year burglary term; Williams’s term runs concurrently with a ten-year arson sentence. Those separately scoped records are not a citywide minimum/maximum, average or prediction.

Quick Answer

• Named defendant records: 5, including a vacated historical conviction
• Reported allocated burglary terms: Torres and Williams, 5 years each; not a complete qualifying range
• Aggregate context: Catullo’s two-indictment total and Morales’s multi-offense blocks
• Later court change: Wheeler’s burglary conviction/sentence vacated June 18, 2025; later trial outcome not verified
• Source-described areas: Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx; precise municipal qualification remains incomplete
• Classification: Class C violent felony

Start at the New York sentence hub, compare third-degree burglary outcomes and second-degree grand-larceny outcomes, and read our methodology.

What Is Second-Degree Burglary in New York?

Under New York Penal Law §140.25, second-degree burglary involves knowingly entering or remaining unlawfully in a building with intent to commit a crime there, plus an aggravating circumstance listed in the statute, or entering or remaining in a dwelling. Aggravating circumstances can include a deadly weapon, injury, threatened use of a dangerous instrument, or display of what appears to be a firearm. The offense is a class C felony and a violent felony offense.

Statutory Sentence

Penal Law §70.02 provides the violent-felony sentencing framework. For a first violent felony offender convicted of a class C violent felony, the determinate prison term is generally 3.5 to 15 years, followed by post-release supervision. Prior violent-felony status and other rules can change the range. The current section 70.02 page also displays a future September 2027 version; that future text is not used as current or automatically applied to older judgments. This statutory framework must not be confused with the selected records below.

Observed Case Outcomes

Case Details

Francisco Torres: The release headed May 7, 2025, although the URL says May 14, reports that day’s five-year sentence for one second-degree burglary plea. His brother Alexander’s six-to-twelve-year third-degree-burglary term and other accomplices’ attempted/third-degree or expected assault outcomes are not additional completed second-degree-burglary examples. It describes a multi-borough ring and Torres’s participation; the exact pleaded count/point is not independently certified.

Michael Williams: The February 26, 2025 release, page 1, numbered 24-2025 despite the filename, expressly allocates five years plus five years’ post-release supervision to burglary and ten years plus five years’ supervision to arson, concurrently. The September 24, 2024 verdict concerns the June 1, 2023 Mohegan Avenue apartment fire. A counsel/costs order with an October 28, 2025 correction, indictment 72462/23 and appeal 2025-01183, concerns the same dated Bronx judgment; it is procedural, not a merits affirmance or new sentence.

John Catullo: The May 29, 2024 release reports ten years on two indictments, not ten years expressly assigned to each burglary count. A November 16, 2023 plea resolved the earlier spree; a May 14, 2024 plea concerned a new December 1 burglary while on bail. The source does not state the previously asserted five-year supervision term, so that unsupported detail is removed. Kravchenko’s two-to-six-year third-degree-burglary/gun/trespass result is not a second-degree target example.

Elsun Wheeler: The April 7, 2016 release reported fifteen years for burglary plus seven consecutive years for assault. The January 26, 2022 order reversed the judgment; the May 18, 2023 Court of Appeals memorandum reversed that order and remitted unresolved issues. Crucially, the June 18, 2025 decision then vacated the burglary conviction and its sentence, ordered a new burglary trial preceded by an independent-source identification hearing, and otherwise affirmed the judgment. The old fifteen years is therefore historical, not an operative burglary-range endpoint. No later trial outcome is verified here. The source’s Montauk Avenue offense description is distinct from the defendant’s Linden Boulevard residence; separate disruptive-conduct jail time is not a burglary term.

Juan Morales: The May 7, 2025 release reports the preceding day’s sentence following a March 18 verdict: twelve second-degree-burglary convictions, one acquitted burglary count and related convictions. Twenty-seven determinate years covers burglary, attempted burglary and tool possession, followed by one-to-three years for other offenses, plus five years’ post-release supervision. The total is not allocated to one burglary; Jackson Heights residence is not the point of every offense. The September 19, 2025 motion order, indictment 70884/2023 and appeal 2025-05971, concerns that May 6 Queens judgment and denies a counsel/costs application with leave to renew; it does not affirm the conviction or term.

Why Outcomes Differ

Whether the building was a dwelling, presence of occupants, injury or weapon allegations, number of incidents, prior record, plea agreement, trial verdict, and consecutive or concurrent sentencing can all matter. Spree cases may produce aggregate structures that cannot be reduced to a sentence for one burglary.

Methodology

Five named historical/report records are described, not five fully qualified completed independent cases. Multiple counts, accomplices and appellate decisions do not multiply independent prosecutions. The vacated Wheeler burglary outcome, unallocated totals and unlike supervision/indeterminate structures do not form a numerical range. Actual primary critical passages and procedural orders were read September 28, 2026; focused later-name/docket searches did not verify a post-remand Wheeler sentence. Independent municipal points, exhaustive docket history and case-specific historical-law qualification remain incomplete.

Sources

• New York Penal Law §140.25
• New York Penal Law §70.02

Disclaimer

General information only, not legal advice. Sentencing depends on the exact subsection, record, plea, enhancements, and facts.