Penal Law § 190.78 · Article 190. Other Frauds
Identity theft in the third degree
Text — Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 190.78 Identity theft in the third degree.
A person is guilty of identity theft in the third degree when such person knowingly and with intent to defraud assumes the identity of another person by presenting themself as that other person, or by acting as that other person or by using personal identifying information of that other person, and thereby:
1. obtains goods, money, property or services or uses credit in the name of such other person or causes financial loss to such person or to another person or persons; or
2. commits a class A misdemeanor or higher level crime.
Identity theft in the third degree is a class A misdemeanor.
Source of truth
- Edition
- Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
- Official file
- https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/PEN190.78
- Text hash
- sha256 2c7ec1fd61d012129590a0b2c3bdb369bf437f374b05e8731f34d4ed960c2111
- Composed by
- gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.