NY State Senate Bill 2025-S490

Senate Bill S490

2025-2026 Legislative Session

Includes instances of sexual conduct against a child less than seventeen years of age to certain sex offenses

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Current Bill Status - In Senate Committee Codes Committee

Introduced
- In Committee Assembly
- In Committee Senate
- On Floor Calendar Assembly
- On Floor Calendar Senate
- Passed Assembly
- Passed Senate
Delivered to Governor
Signed By Governor

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	Assembly Actions - Lowercase Senate Actions - UPPERCASE
Jan 08, 2025	referred to codes

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2025-S490 (ACTIVE) - Details

See Assembly Version of this Bill:: A490
Current Committee:: Senate Codes
Law Section:: Penal Law
Laws Affected:: Amd §§130.75, 130.80 & 130.96, Pen L
Versions Introduced in Other Legislative Sessions:: 2019-2020: S7248
2021-2022: S406
2023-2024: S4046, A8193

2025-S490 (ACTIVE) - Summary

Includes instances of sexual conduct against a child less than seventeen years of age to certain sex offenses; removes the time limit to bring subsequent sexual offenses.

2025-S490 (ACTIVE) - Sponsor Memo

                                 
BILL NUMBER: S490

SPONSOR: FERNANDEZ
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the penal law, in relation to including instances of
sexual conduct against a child less than seventeen years of age to
certain sex offenses

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

To permit crimes of sexual conduct against a child in the first and
second degrees and predatory sexual assault against a child to include
all sexual conduct against a child committed prior to the child's seven-
teenth birthday.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 amends subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.75 of the penal law
(course of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree) to
include all sexual conduct against a child committed prior to the
child's seventeenth birthday.

Section 2 amends subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.80 of the penal law
(course of sexual conduct against a child in the second degree) to
include all sexual conduct against a child committed prior to the
child's seventeenth birthday.

Section 3 amends subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.96 of the penal law
(predatory sexual assault against a child) to include all sexual conduct
against a child committed prior to the child's seventeenth birthday.

Section 4 sets the effective date.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Child victims of sexual abuse are often victimized by offenders repeat-
edly over the course of many years throughout adolescence.  Prosecutors
routinely find victims' accounts of child sexual assault to be credible,
yet are unable to bring charges because current statute dictates that a
defendant cannot be charged for raping or sexually abusing a child after
the child's eleventh or thirteenth birthday (depending upon which subdi-
vision of the statutes is used) if the child is unable to provide a
narrow time frame for the abuse.  As a result, no felony sex charges can
be brought; all that can be charged may be a misdemeanor count of endan-
gering the welfare of a child to cover years of rapes, criminal sexual
acts and other sexual abuse.

This legislation will preclude victims from the emotionally devastating
requirement to recall and testify the exact dates of all sex crimes
committed against them when the acts are so numerous that no one could
reasonably be expected to ascribe specific dates to each one. Second,
prosecutors will no longer have to present judges, defendants and juries
with complicated and cumbersome multi-count indictments involving dozens
or hundreds of charges by allowing a single count of course of sexual
conduct against a child or predatory sexual assault against a child to
be charged to cover all sexual abuse through a victim's seventeenth
birthday.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

2023-24: S4046 / A8193

2021-22: S406 / A3225

2019-20: S7248 / A9101

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None to the state

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately

2025-S490 (ACTIVE) - Bill Text download pdf

                             
                     S T A T E   O F   N E W   Y O R K
 ________________________________________________________________________
 
                                    490
 
                        2025-2026 Regular Sessions
 
                             I N  S E N A T E
 
                                (PREFILED)
 
                              January 8, 2025
                                ___________
 
 Introduced  by Sens. FERNANDEZ, ADDABBO, BORRELLO, ROLISON -- read twice
   and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee
   on Codes
 
 AN ACT to amend the penal law, in relation  to  including  instances  of
   sexual  conduct  against  a  child less than seventeen years of age to
   certain sex offenses
 
   THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND  ASSEM-
 BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
 
   Section 1. Subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.75 of the penal law, as
 amended  by  chapter  1  of  the laws of 2000, paragraphs (a) and (b) of
 subdivision 1 as amended by chapter 777 of the laws of 2023, are amended
 to read as follows:
   [1.] A person is guilty of course of sexual conduct against a child in
 the first degree when, over a period of time not less than three  months
 in duration:
   [(a)  he  or she] 1. SUCH PERSON engages in two or more acts of sexual
 conduct, which includes at least one act of vaginal sexual contact, oral
 sexual contact, anal sexual contact or aggravated sexual contact, with a
 child less than eleven years old; AND INCLUDES AT LEAST  ONE  ADDITIONAL
 ACT OF SEXUAL CONTACT WITH THE CHILD WHEN THAT CHILD IS LESS THAN SEVEN-
 TEEN YEARS OLD; or
   [(b)  he  or she] 2. SUCH PERSON, being eighteen years old or more, AT
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE COURSE OF SEXUAL CONTACT, engages in two or more
 acts of sexual conduct, which include at least one act of vaginal sexual
 contact, oral sexual contact, anal sexual contact or  aggravated  sexual
 contact,  with  a  child  less  than thirteen years old; AND INCLUDES AT
 LEAST ONE ADDITIONAL ACT OF SEXUAL CONTACT  WITH  THE  CHILD  WHEN  THAT
 CHILD IS LESS THAN SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD.
 
  EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                       [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                            LBD01846-01-5
 S. 490                              2

 
   [2.  A  person may not be subsequently prosecuted for any other sexual
 offense involving the same  victim  unless  the  other  charged  offense
 occurred outside the time period charged under this section.]
   §  2.  Subdivisions  1  and  2  of section 130.80 of the penal law, as
 amended by chapter 1 of the  laws  of  2000,  are  amended  to  read  as
 follows:
   [1.] A person is guilty of course of sexual conduct against a child in
 the second degree when, over a period of time not less than three months
 in duration:
   [(a)  he  or she] 1. SUCH PERSON engages in two or more acts of sexual
 conduct with a child, WHICH INCLUDES AT LEAST ONE ACT OF SEXUAL  CONDUCT
 WITH  THE  CHILD  WHEN  THE  CHILD  IS  less  than eleven years old; AND
 INCLUDES AT LEAST ONE ADDITIONAL ACT OF SEXUAL CONDUCT WITH  SUCH  CHILD
 WHEN THE CHILD IS LESS THAN SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD; or
   [(b)  he  or she] 2. SUCH PERSON, being eighteen years old or more, AT
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE COURSE OF SEXUAL CONDUCT, engages in two or more
 acts of sexual conduct with a child, WHICH INCLUDES AT LEAST ONE ACT  OF
 SEXUAL CONDUCT WITH THE CHILD WHEN THE CHILD IS less than thirteen years
 old;  AND  INCLUDES  AT  LEAST ONE ADDITIONAL ACT OF SEXUAL CONDUCT WITH
 SUCH CHILD WHEN THE CHILD IS LESS THAN SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD.
   [2. A person may not be subsequently prosecuted for any  other  sexual
 offense  involving  the  same  victim  unless  the other charged offense
 occurred outside the time period charged under this section.]
   § 3. Section 130.96 of the penal law, as added by chapter 107  of  the
 laws of 2006, the opening paragraph as amended by chapter 23 of the laws
 of 2024, is amended to read as follows:
 § 130.96 Predatory sexual assault against a child.
   A  person  is guilty of predatory sexual assault against a child when,
 being eighteen years old or more, [he or she] SUCH PERSON commits:
   1. the crime of rape in the first degree, a crime formerly defined  in
 section 130.50 of this title, OR the crime of aggravated sexual abuse in
 the  first  degree,  [or course of sexual conduct against a child in the
 first degree,] as defined in this article, and the victim is  less  than
 thirteen years old[.]; OR
   2.  THE  CRIME  OF  A  COURSE OF SEXUAL CONDUCT AGAINST A CHILD IN THE
 FIRST DEGREE, AS DEFINED IN THIS ARTICLE, AND THE  PERSON  WAS  EIGHTEEN
 YEARS  OLD  OR MORE AND THE VICTIM WAS LESS THAN THIRTEEN YEARS OLD WHEN
 THE CONDUCT COMMENCED.
   Predatory sexual assault against a child is a class A-II felony.
   § 4. This act shall take effect immediately.

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Senate Bill S490

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Sponsored By

Nathalia Fernandez