Meeting Speaker Carl Heastie quietly blocked a invoice that will have closed a loophole within the state’s rape legal guidelines permitting alleged sexual predators to make use of a sufferer’s voluntary intoxication as a part of their protection, sources mentioned.
The invoice, launched by Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz (D-Bronx), acquired bipartisan assist within the decrease chamber, and handed out of the Codes committee in February. The Senate unanimously handed its personal model of the laws, too.
But this month, the invoice didn’t get on the agenda of the Guidelines committee chaired by Heastie — who holds the ultimate say on whether or not laws will get a vote earlier than heading to the Meeting ground.
“If this can be a invoice [Heastie] wished handed, it could’ve sailed by means of with none issues,” a legislative supply instructed The Put up.
Advocates lashed out on the Meeting speaker for successfully killing the invoice, claiming he ought to be significantly involved with the difficulty since rapes have soared 25% this 12 months within the forty ninth Precinct, which covers the Laconia neighborhood the place Heastie’s workplace is positioned, in comparison with 2023, per NYPD information.
“New York State legal guidelines at the moment usually are not adequate to guard us all once we are at our most defenseless, a lot much less survivors of rape. Speaker Heastie is just proliferating that,” mentioned Elizabeth da Trindade-Asher, co-chair of the Justice With out Exclusion Coalition.
A spokesman for Heastie didn’t reply to a request for remark. Dinowitz declined to remark.
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