Assembly Passes Legislation to Ensure Rape Survivors Receive Justice

Speaker Carl Heastie and Assemblymember Catalina Cruz today announced the Assembly has passed legislation to redefine the state’s rape statutes to ensure that victims of nonconsensual sexual conduct are able to seek more appropriate justice.

“For more than 10 years, the Assembly Majority has championed this legislation to update our laws so that survivors of sexual assault are able to receive the justice they deserve,” said Speaker Heastie. “The language we use to identify these heinous crimes matters, and we must ensure our laws recognize that fact.”

“This bill has now been passed by the Assembly 11 times,” said Assemblymember Cruz. “We owe it to survivors of these horrendous crimes to fix our outdated gendered laws to ensure justice is served. I am proud to carry this legislation, and I hope that this will be the last time the Assembly needs to pass this overdue measure.”

Today’s legislation would remove the requirement of penetration from the definition of sexual intercourse for the purposes of New York’s rape statutes, and redefine rape to include nonconsensual vaginal sexual contact, oral sexual contact and anal sexual contact, which are currently prosecuted as criminal sexual acts (A.3340, Cruz).