BILL NUMBER:S5422A

TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the penal law, in relation to creating
the crime of tampering with electronic monitoring equipment

PURPOSE OF BILL:

The bill would make it a crime for a person to tamper, damage or
otherwise alter electronic monitoring equipment utilized in accordance
with subdivision 4 of section 65.10 of the penal law in an attempt to
interfere with any signal, impulse or data to being transmitted by
such electronic monitoring equipment.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 amends the penal law by adding two new sections 145.75 and
145.80.

Section 145.75 establishes the crime of tampering with electronic
monitoring equipment in the second degree. Tampering with electronic
monitoring equipment in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.

Section 145.80 establishes the crime of tampering with electronic
monitoring equipment in the first degree. Tampering with electronic
equipment in the first degree occurs when an individual is guilty of
tampering with electronic monitoring equipment in the second degree
              

and also commits a crime classified as a class A or. B felony.
Tampering with electronic monitoring equipment in the first degree is
a class S felony and the court shall impose consecutive convictions.

JUSTIFICATION:

Currently, a court has the power to order an individual who has been
convicted of a crime or is awaiting trial to wear electronic
monitoring equipment. The purpose of the electronic monitoring
equipment is to assist in the tracking and monitoring of such
individual while he or she is released into the general public.  If
the electronic monitoring equipment is tampered with in such a way as
to interfere with any signal, impulse or data from being transmitted,
then the individual ordered to wear the equipment is no longer being
monitored as ordered by the Court.

An example of this occurred on the evening of Thursday, March 14, 2013
when David Renz, who was subject to electronic monitoring while
awaiting trial on charges of possessing child pornography, was able to
tamper with his electronic monitoring equipment by removing it and
then quickly putting it back together. This allowed him to violate his
curfew by leaving his mother's house without the electronic monitoring
equipment during a time when he was ordered by the court to remain
inside and under supervision. It was on that evening that he was able
to follow Lori A. Bresnahan and a ten-year-old girl from a gymnastics
class at the Great Northern Mall in Clay, New York. Upon confronting
them, the suspect raped the young girl in the mall parking lot. The
suspect then forced them into the woman's car and drove to Verplank
Road where he proceeded to kill Lori A. Bresnahan by stabbing her to
death.


LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

05--06: A8281
07-08: A3154/S2277
2009: A3502(Bradley)
2011: A3357
2012: A3357

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

This Act shall take effect on the first of November.  next succeeding
the date on which it shall have become law.