Section 255.17 Adultery
A person is guilty of adultery when he engages in sexual intercourse with another person at a time when he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse.
Adultery is a class B misdemeanor.
http://wings.buffalo.edu/law/bclc/we...ny3%28b%29.htm
Looks like the story has gone international:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...ery.html?cat=9
Suzanne Corona is Taken in Adultery
Published June 09, 2010 by:
Mark Whittington
Suzanne Corona, married mother of three,
has been caught having sex with a man on a picnic table in a public park with a man twelve years her junior a short distance away from a children's play area in
the small, New York town of Batavia.
Though apparently most of their clothes were still on when they were caught inflagranti delicto, Suzanne Corona and Justin Amend have been charged with public lewdness. Moreover, Corona has been charged with adultery according to a little known and little used New York state statute that has been on the books for over the century.
"Section 255.17 of the New York State penal law states: 'A person is guilty of adultery when he engages in sexual intercourse with another person at a time he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse.'
"It is now considered a Class B misdemeanour and is punishable by a £350 fine and 90 days in jail."
Despite the wording of the law, Justin Amend has not also been charged with the same crime, which would tend to be a problem of selective prosecution.
Most people, even those who engage in it regularly, agree that adultery is morally wrong. It is a violation of a promise made by most couples when they get married and tends to lead to heart ache, legal trouble, and sometimes worse in certain areas of the country where shooting one spouse's lover is still customary. But most people would be shocked to find out that adultery is technically a crime in ten states.
In most cases, marital infidelity has been considered a private matter between the husband, wife, and the correspondent lover. This was true even when the husband was President Bill Clinton, the wife Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the lover Monica Lewinski. Mind, in that case it was really not a private matter, due to the high profile of the people involved and how the dangerous liaisons let to perjury, obstruction of justice, and the second impeachment of a US President in history.
But, as Suzanne Corona's husband is standing by her and appears to have forgiven her for her indiscretion, one cannot see how the matter should be the subjection of a legal prosecution. One suspects that the local
district attorney will drop the adultery charge and the lewd conduct will be pled down. The shame Suzanne Corona is evidently feeling is greater punishment than anything that the State of New York can inflict on her.
Source: Hand-in-hand with her husband, the mother accused of adultery after picnic passion with lover in a U.S. public park, Daily Mail, JUne 9th, 2010
