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In 2014, New York City started to require registration in a database for all persons convicted of an animal abuse crime. The law requires that any person 18 years of age or older that is convicted of an animal abuse crime to register with the database within five days of conviction or release from incarceration.
Any person required to register must provide their name, all aliases, date of birth, sex, complexion, race or ethnicity, height, weight, eye color, number of any driver’s license or non-driver photo ID card, and address. A photograph of each offender must also be provided to include in the database, as well as a detailed description of the offense that was committed. This registration must be updated annually, with a new picture, and the registration must stay in database for five years. Any subsequent conviction will require offender to stay registered for ten years from date of most recent conviction for animal abuse.
The penalty for failure to register or update registration is being guilty of a misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to one year of incarceration, or a fine up to $1,000.00, or both.
The New York City law also prohibits any registrant from having any contact with an animal, including owning, possessing, residing with, having custody of, or intentionally engaging in physical contact with an animals. Additionally, the law requires pet shops and other animal entities to check the database before transferring ownership to any person and prohibits doing so knowingly. Failure to check or providing an animal to a registrant knowingly will result in the entity being guilty of a misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to one year of incarceration, or a fine up to $1,000.00, or both.
Rincker Law, PLLC works on animal law cases – both with litigation and mediation. Cari is licensed in the Tri-state area and Illinois. She works on both companion animal, livestock and equine law matters.