Includes a police or peace officers turning off their body camera or deleting a body camera recording in the crime of tampering with physical evidence.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
1426
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 9, 2025
___________
Introduced by M. of A. HUNTER, ZINERMAN, EPSTEIN, JACKSON, DINOWITZ --
read once and referred to the Committee on Codes
AN ACT to amend the penal law, in relation to tampering with physical
evidence
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Section 215.40 of the penal law is amended to read as
2 follows:
3 § 215.40 Tampering with physical evidence.
4 A person is guilty of tampering with physical evidence when:
5 1. With intent that it be used or introduced in an official proceeding
6 or a prospective official proceeding, [he] such person (a) knowingly
7 makes, devises or prepares false physical evidence, or (b) produces or
8 offers such evidence at such a proceeding knowing it to be false; or
9 2. Believing that certain physical evidence is about to be produced or
10 used in an official proceeding or a prospective official proceeding, and
11 intending to prevent such production or use, [he] such person suppresses
12 it by any act of concealment, alteration or destruction, or by employing
13 force, intimidation or deception against any person; or
14 3. Such person is a police or peace officer and either turns off a
15 body camera in a situation where it is the policy of such officer's
16 department or agency that such body camera should be recording, or where
17 such officer deletes a body camera recording.
18 Tampering with physical evidence is a class E felony.
19 § 2. This act shall take effect on the thirtieth day after it shall
20 have become a law.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD03959-01-5
