STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
5887
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
March 3, 2025
___________
Introduced by Sen. LANZA -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Codes
AN ACT to amend the penal law, in relation to dissemination of false
information about a missing child
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The penal law is amended by adding a new section 240.49 to
2 read as follows:
3 § 240.49 Dissemination of false missing child information.
4 A person is guilty of dissemination of false missing child information
5 when, knowing the information such person reported, conveyed, circulated
6 or disseminated is false or baseless, such person states or reports, by
7 any means, that a child is a missing child as defined in subdivision one
8 of section eight hundred thirty-seven-e of the executive law, and as a
9 result of such report, conveyance, circulation or dissemination, public
10 funds were expended to investigate and/or locate the purported missing
11 child.
12 Dissemination of false missing child information is a class E felony.
13 § 2. This act shall take effect on the first of November next succeed-
14 ing the date on which it shall have become a law.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD10341-01-5
