Penal Law § 255.20 · Article 255. Offenses Affecting the Marital Relationship
Unlawfully procuring a marriage license, bigamy, adultery: defense
Verbatim from the official edition
Text — Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 255.20 Unlawfully procuring a marriage license, bigamy, adultery: defense.
In any prosecution for unlawfully procuring a marriage license, bigamy, or adultery, it is an affirmative defense that the defendant acted under a reasonable belief that both he and the other person to the marriage or prospective marriage or to the sexual intercourse, as the case may be, were unmarried.
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/PEN255.20
- Text hash
- sha256 a9966417e0b65914dfdf6df6e4068c38574a69460ffeb9ecc27179ea91c95841
- 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.