Coercion; defense · as in force on May 31, 2026
§ 135.75 Coercion; defense.
In any prosecution for coercion committed by instilling in the victim a fear that he or another person would be charged with a crime, it is an affirmative defense that the defendant reasonably believed the threatened charge to be true and that his sole purpose was to compel or induce the victim to take reasonable action to make good the wrong which was the subject of such threatened charge.
For coercion based on threatening a criminal charge, it is an affirmative defense that the defendant reasonably believed the charge was true and acted solely to make the victim take reasonable action to correct the underlying wrong. ★
Marked in the text: penalties, time limits, sums of money. Editorial emphasis added by this edition; it does not appear in the statute as enacted.
This provision appears in Volume 4 — The Court Clerk: Penal Law; Volume 1 — The Court Officer in Plain English; Volume 3 — The Court Officer: Penal Law; Volume 3 — Your Career: Penal Law in Plain English.