Penal Law § 490.20 · Article 490. Terrorism
Making a terroristic threat
Text — Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 490.20 Making a terroristic threat.
1. A person is guilty of making a terroristic threat when with intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping, he or she threatens to commit or cause to be committed a specified offense and thereby causes a reasonable expectation or fear of the imminent commission of such offense.
2. It shall be no defense to a prosecution pursuant to this section that the defendant did not have the intent or capability of committing the specified offense or that the threat was not made to a person who was a subject thereof.
Making a terroristic threat is a class D felony.
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/PEN490.20
- Text hash
- sha256 2760cc1ee8d2ca371ee7f62653bcbe1a6acd01f32d84e5cc6cece321c70e7962
- 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.