Is cheating illegal? New York lawmaker looks to repeal state law
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NEW YORK - Cheating on your spouse in New York is technically illegal under a 1907 law, but now, one lawmaker is looking to change that.
Assemblyman Charles Lavine (D-North Shore) is looking to repeal and decriminalize the act of adultery in the state.
Under the current law, adultery in New York State is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to three months behind bars.
Lavine believes the bill is important as it allows for the removal of what he calls an "archaic" piece of law.
"It just makes no sense whatsoever, and we’ve come a long way since intimate relationships between consenting adults are considered immoral,"Lavine says. "It’s a joke. This law was someone’s expression of moral outrage."
What is considered cheating?
Lavine’s bill, A.4714, would decriminalize the act of adultery, which the state defines as when a person "engages in sexual intercourse with another person at a time when he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse."
Photo by: Natasha Breen/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
After passing unanimously through the Codes Committee earlier this month, the bill passed in the full chamber on Monday by a vote of 137-10 and is now waiting on the State Senate.
Lavine's cites that since 1972, only 13 people have been charged with adultery. Of those, only five were convicted of the crime.
"It is long past time for us to remove it from the penal code. If a law is not enforced, there is no reason it should be maintained," he added.
Being caught cheating
In most of those cases, there were some other crimes involved, and the prosecuting attorney added adultery as just one of many crimes committed, he claims.
The last adultery charge in New York was filed in 2010 against a woman who was caught engaging in a sex act in a public park. It was later dropped.
Only about a dozen people have been charged under the law, with five of them resulting in convictions with sentences of 90 days in jail.
In the 1960s, a state commission reviewed the penal code claiming adultery was "a matter of private morality, not of law."
It remained in place, however, after some said that if removed, it might appear like the state was endorsing infidelity.
More than a dozen states that still have adultery laws classify them as misdemeanors.
In Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Michigan, adultery is a felony offense.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.