Expands the definition of "criminal act", for purposes of enterprise corruption, to include computer offenses, identity theft and other fraud offenses

Summary of provisions

Section 1 amends NY Penal Law § 460.10(1)(a) to include: section 156.10 relating to computer trespass; sections 156.25, 156.26, and 156.27 relating to computer tampering; section 156.30 relating to unlawful duplication of computer related material; section 156.35 relating to Criminal possession of computer related material; section 190.76 relating to criminal use of an access device; sections 190.79, 190.80, and 190.80-a relating to identity theft; sections 190.82 and 190.83 relating to unlawful possession of personal identification information; and section 190.86 relating to unlawful possession of a skimmer device within the list of predicate criminal acts in the definition section of New York's Enterprise Corruption statute,

Section 2 establishes the effective date.

Justification

According to the FBI's National Gang Intelligence Center "gangs are becoming more involved in white-collar crime, including identity theft, bank fraud, credit card fraud, money laundering, fencing stolen goods, counterfeiting, and mortgage fraud, and are recruiting members who possess those skill sets." Along with Florida, New York is one of the twin epicenters of this troubling new development in organized crime.

In 2011, an identity theft ring spearheaded by the Crips, Bloods, and a Brooklyn-based gang called The Outlaws stole more than $2 million from New York charities. In 2012, the cyber-theft of ten million credit and debit card records was attributed to a New York City based street gang with ties to Central America. Also in 2012, a Romanian man with ties to organized crime was charged with stealing at least $1.5M by installing "skimmer" devices at ATM machines across New York City and Long Island. Along with these high profile incidents, there are countless other such crimes, many of which go undetected.

New York law enforcement is increasingly devoting greater resources to this new breed of organized crime and the efforts are paying

dividends. Unfortunately, the law has not kept up with its enforcers. Despite the increasing prominence of these crimes, New York's Enterprise Corruption statute, which targets organized crime, does not include a wide variety of cyber and identity crimes within its predicate felonies. In order to give law enforcement the tools they need to crack down on organized white-collar crime, the law needs to be updated to reflect current realities. This legislation makes the changes necessary to bring New York's Enterprise Corruption law into the 21st Century and give prosecutors the means to fight the unchecked spread of new-age gang crime.

Additionally, including crimes such as identity theft in the Enterprise Corruption statute would both provide the state with potentially large-scale savings by eliminating duplicative legal proceedings and protect defendants from having to be tried twice for the same conduct For instance, under current law, when a defendant commits the crime of Enterprise Corruption by committing larceny through identity theft, he must be indicted twice for the same underlying actions--one indictment for Enterprise Corruption and Larceny and a second indictment for the identity theft charges. This means that a defendant gets two arrest numbers, has two indictments, gets arraigned twice, has bail set twice (once on each indictment), has two sets of motions, and eventually gets tried for the same conduct not once, but twice. This also means that a defendant likely needs to pay two retainers to defense counsel. This current system is both inequitable to defendants and unnecessarily costly to the state.

This commonsense legislation will make it easier to go after gangs and organized crime syndicates, save money for the state, and protect defendants' legitimate, lawful rights.

Legislative history

This is a new bill.

Fiscal implications

May provide significant saving to the state by eliminating duplicative legal proceedings.

Effective date

This act shall take effect on the first of November next succeeding the date on which it shall have become law.