Penal Law § 490.55 · Article 490. Terrorism
Criminal use of a chemical weapon or biological weapon in the first degree
Text — Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 490.55 Criminal use of a chemical weapon or biological weapon in the first degree.
A person is guilty of criminal use of a chemical weapon or biological weapon in the first degree when:
1. with intent to:
(a) cause serious physical injury to, or the death of, another person; and
(b) (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) influence the policy of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination, or kidnapping; he or she uses, deploys, releases, or causes to be used, deployed, or released any select chemical agent and thereby causes serious physical injury to, or the death of, another person who is not a participant in the crime.
2. with intent to cause serious physical injury to, or the death of, more than two persons, he or she uses, deploys, releases, or causes to be used, deployed, or released any select chemical agent and thereby causes serious physical injury to, or the death of, more than two persons who are not participants in the crime; or
3. with intent to cause serious physical injury to, or the death of, another person, he or she uses, deploys, releases, or causes to be used, deployed, or released any select biological agent and thereby causes serious physical injury to, or the death of, another person who is not a participant in the crime.
Criminal use of a chemical weapon or biological weapon in the first degree is a class A-I 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/PEN490.55
- Text hash
- sha256 93a3777fa9e911fcc3e65e436436eb14189f34d0ac69d8782a4da81fbb1b9b2b
- 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.