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N.Y. PEN Law § 260.00

This is the official text of N.Y. PEN Law § 260.00, part of New York’s Penal Law — defines crimes and punishments in New York.

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Abandonment of a child

Official statutory text

§ 260.00 Abandonment of a child.\n 1. A person is guilty of abandonment of a child when, being a parent,\nguardian or other person legally charged with the care or custody of a\nchild less than fourteen years old, he or she deserts such child in any\nplace with intent to wholly abandon such child.\n 2. A person is not guilty of the provisions of this section when he or\nshe engages in the conduct described in subdivision one of this section:\n(a) with the intent that the child be safe from physical injury and\ncared for in an appropriate manner; (b) the child is left with an\nappropriate person, or in a suitable location and the person who leaves\nthe child promptly notifies an appropriate person of the child's\nlocation; and (c) the child is not more than thirty days old.\n Abandonment of a child is a class E felony.\n

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.