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Penal Law § 263.20 · Article 263. Sexual Performance By a Child

Sexual performance by a child; affirmative defenses

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)

§ 263.20 Sexual performance by a child; affirmative defenses.

1. Under this article, it shall be an affirmative defense that the defendant in good faith reasonably believed the person appearing in the performance was, for purposes of section 263.11 or 263.16 of this article, sixteen years of age or over or, for purposes of section 263.05, 263.10 or 263.15 of this article, seventeen years of age or over.

2. In any prosecution for any offense pursuant to this article, it is an affirmative defense that the person so charged was a librarian engaged in the normal course of his employment, a motion picture projectionist, stage employee or spotlight operator, cashier, doorman, usher, candy stand attendant, porter or in any other non-managerial or non-supervisory capacity in a motion picture theatre; provided he has no financial interest, other than his employment, which employment does not encompass compensation based upon any proportion of the gross receipts, in the promotion of a sexual performance for sale, rental or exhibition or in the promotion, presentation or direction of any sexual performance, or is in any way responsible for acquiring such material for sale, rental or exhibition.

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/PEN263.20
Text hash
sha256 ea0be1cb1bfb37e4a4635b18c8d215dc4920e873112a25eb63e18c0cc7f9835c
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.