Century-old law which makes cheating illegal in New York could be scrapped

Published

2 months ago

March 22, 2024

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A US state could be about to scrap a century-old law which criminalises the act of cheating.

Adultery has been classed as a low-level criminal offence – known as a misdemeanour – in the state of New York since 1907.

Such laws were traditionally introduced in states across the US to reduce the number of divorces at a time when a cheating spouse was the only way to secure a legal split.

However, only about a dozen people have been charged in New York since 1972, with the last more than a decade ago.

And of those cases, just five have netted convictions, according to New York assemblyman Charles Lavine, who has sponsored a bill to repeal the seldom-used law.

“It just makes no sense whatsoever, and we’ve come a long way since intimate relationships between consenting adults are considered immoral,” he said.

“It’s a joke. This law was someone’s expression of moral outrage.”

Katharine Silbaugh, a law professor at Boston University who co-authored the book “A Guide to America’s Sex Laws”, said adultery bans were aimed at punishing women.

“Let’s just say this: patriarchy,” she said.

The bill to scrap the adultery ban has already passed the state assembly and is expected to soon pass the state senate, before it can move to the governor’s office for a signature.

How the law has been used since its creation

Just a few weeks after the law went into effect in 1907, a married man and a 25-year-old woman became the first people arrested after the man’s wife sued for divorce, according to a New York Times article from the time.

The last adultery charge in New York appears to have been filed in 2010 against a woman who was caught engaging in a sex act in a public park.

However, the case was later dropped as part of a plea deal.

The law was almost scrapped in the 1960s after a panel tasked with updating New York’s criminal laws found the adultery ban was practically impossible to enforce.

However, while the proposal was initially accepted in the state assembly, the chamber restored it after a politician argued scrapping the bill could give the impression that the state was endorsing infidelity, according to a New York Times article from 1965.

Most states in the US that still have adultery laws classify them as misdemeanours – a type of low-level offence.

However, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Michigan treat adultery as a much more serious type of offence, known as a felony.

Several states, including Colorado and New Hampshire, have moved to repeal their adultery laws, using similar arguments to those being used in New York.

US

Rust weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez appeals against conviction over fatal shooting on Alec Baldwin film set

Published

7 hours ago

May 15, 2024

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Rust weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez appeals against conviction over fatal shooting on Alec Baldwin film set

The weapons supervisor for the Western film Rust is appealing against her conviction for involuntary manslaughter over the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on set, according to court documents.

Hannah Gutierrez was jailed in April after being found guilty by jurors following a trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the US.

She was in charge of weapons during the production of the film in October 2021, when a Colt 45 revolver fired by actor and co-producer Alec Baldwin went off during a rehearsal.

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died, while director Joel Souza was injured.

A defence lawyer for Gutierrez, who is serving an 18-month sentence at a prison for women in New Mexico, filed a shortly worded appeal notice on Monday.

Her legal team has 30 days to submit detailed arguments. They previously requested a new trial following the verdict.

Gutierrez’s trial was told she unwittingly brought live ammunition to the set, where it was expressly prohibited, and failed to follow basic gun safety protocols.

During her sentencing hearing, she told the court she had tried to do her best while working on the production, despite not having “proper time, resources and staffing”.

Alec Baldwin case latest

Baldwin, who was a producer for the film as well as its star, has also pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

He maintains he pulled back the gun’s hammer – but not the trigger – before it fired, and is set to face trial in July. He denies any wrongdoing.

The 66-year-old was originally charged in January 2023, more than a year after the shooting, but those charges were dropped a few months later. He was charged again in January this year.

His legal team has filed a motion calling for the charges to be dropped. Prosecutors responded with a 32-page document claiming that footage of the star on set shows he had “absolutely no control of his own emotions” and “no concern for how his conduct” affected those around him.

Assistant director David Halls, who also faced charges, entered a plea bargain for negligent use of a deadly weapon last year, receiving a six-month suspended sentence.

Filming of Rust resumed last year in Montana – with Baldwin reprising his role as the main character – after an agreement made Ms Hutchins’s widower an executive producer.

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Man who scooped $1.35bn lottery win ’embroiled in legal battle with his own family’

Published

9 hours ago

May 15, 2024

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Man who scooped .35bn lottery win 'embroiled in legal battle with his own family'

A man who scooped a $1.35bn lottery win is said to be embroiled in a legal battle – with his own family.

The Mega Millions winner, who has not been named but is believed to hail from the US state of Maine, won the fourth-largest jackpot in US history last year (worth around £1.07bn).

But the story has only grown more complex since then, and the man is now involved in legal proceedings with two members of his family, US media outlet The Daily Beast reports.

He is said to have sued his daughter’s mother for allegedly revealing his newfound wealth to other members of his family in what he claimed was a violation of a non-disclosure agreement.

The lottery winner has also reportedly demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties, claiming that his child’s mother told his father, sister and stepmother about his big windfall.

But in recent court filings, the woman alleged that the man himself told his father and stepmother about the win, The Daily Beast reported.

Her lawyers said this “shatters the remaining shards” of the lawsuit.

The unnamed lottery winner’s father has also now apparently become involved in the legal proceedings, alleging that his son misled him about a number of things since the win.

“I understand that my son has stated that he told me nothing about his money ‘other than the simple fact that I had won.’ That is not true,” he is quoted as saying in a declaration.

His dad adds that his son “told me a number of things he planned on doing with his money,” even though he never asked him for anything, The Daily Beast also reported.

These allegedly included building a new garage for his father as well as buying old cars to fix up.

US

Michael Cohen tells trial he lied and bullied for ex-president and was ‘knee deep’ in Trump ‘cult’

Published

19 hours ago

May 15, 2024

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Michael Cohen tells trial he lied and bullied for ex-president and was 'knee deep' in Trump 'cult'

Michael Cohen said he had been “knee deep into the cult of Donald Trump” as he testified for a second day in the ex-president’s trial.

As Trump‘s defence tried to paint the former lawyer and ‘fixer’ as a bitter and fame-hungry former acolyte, he denied being obsessed by his former boss but said he had once “admired him tremendously”.

He is testifying in the case about hush money payments to ex-porn star Stormy Daniels in an attempt to cover up an alleged sexual encounter in 2006.

Trump trial – Day 17 as it happened

Such payouts aren’t illegal, but Trump is accused of falsifying business records to hide it – a claim he denies.

He told the court on Tuesday that loyalty was the reason he kept lying about the payment when it came out in the media.

In 2016 he described Trump as kind, humble, honest and genuine.

The defence asked whether he had believed what he was saying.

“At the time, I was knee-deep into the cult of Donald Trump,” he responded, adding: “I was not lying, no, that’s how I felt.”

Mr Cohen admitted he “missed Trump” at times after he became president.

They have also pointed to hundreds of media appearances, podcasts and interviews in which the disgraced lawyer has mentioned him.

His credibility was under attack as Mr Cohen has previously admitted lying under oath.

The 57-year-old was jailed after pleading guilty in 2018 to charges relating to the hush money payment and other unrelated offences.

He said that after a FBI raid on his home the same year, Trump had messaged him: “I am the president of the United States, everything is going to be okay, stay tough”.

Donald Trump denies the liaison with Stormy Daniels and says Mr Cohen acted on his own initiative when he made the payment.

The former lawyer denied that claim in earlier evidence, saying “everything required Trump’s sign-off”.

‘I violated my moral compass’

Mr Cohen – who once said he would take a bullet for his boss – admitted at the end of questioning on Tuesday that he “violated my moral compass” while working for Donald Trump.

“I regret doing things for him that I should not have,” he told the New York court. “Lying, bullying people in order to effectuate the goal.

“I don’t regret working for the Trump Organisation – as I expressed before, [those were] some very interesting, great times,” he added.

“But to keep the loyalty and to do things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as did my family. That is my failure.”

On Monday, the court heard him testify about setting up a shell company to make the $130,000 hush money out of his own money.

Prosecutors say Trump later paid the money back and covered it up by recording it as a legal retainer fee.

He faces 34 counts of falsifying business records over the claims.

Trump – who will take on Joe Biden in his bid to become president again in November – is unlikely to face a custodial sentence if found guilty.

His other cases are potentially more damaging but mired in delays.

They concern allegations of keeping stacks of secret documents after leaving office and trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. He denies the claims.