Unlawfully procuring a marriage license, bigamy, adultery: defense · as in force on May 31, 2026
§ 255.20 Unlawfully procuring a marriage license, bigamy, adultery:
defense.
In any prosecution for unlawfully procuring a marriage license, bigamy, or adultery, it is an affirmative defense that the defendant acted under a reasonable belief that both he and the other person to the marriage or prospective marriage or to the sexual intercourse, as the case may be, were unmarried.
In a prosecution for unlawfully procuring a marriage license, bigamy, or adultery, it is an affirmative defense that the defendant reasonably believed both participants were unmarried at the time of the marriage, proposed marriage, or intercourse. ★
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.