People v. Bierenbaum, 301 AD2d 119 [1st Dept 2002], lv denied 99 NY2d 626 [2003], cert denied 540 US 821 [2003] a circumstantial evidence case, involved a defendant convicted of murdering his wife whose body was never found, because allegedly the defendant, a licensed pilot, dropped the corpse into the Atlantic Ocean from a rented airplane. The trial evidence revealed that before the homicide, one of the defendant's treating psychiatrists had sent a "Tarasoff letter" to the defendant's wife warning her of the danger the psychiatrist believed the defendant posed to her. The Appellate Division held that information about the defendant's expressed intentions to harm his wife made to his psychiatrist was properly introduced at the murder trial, both because the defendant had previously consented that his wife be informed and, "also because of the Tarasoff exception to CPLR 4504 (a) privilege. That exception provides that for compelling policy reasons the privilege can be overcome when the patient demonstrates that he poses a clear and present danger to a third party--in this case his wife." People v. Bierenbaum, 301 AD2d at 142.)