{"id":10041,"date":"2026-03-21T05:07:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/new-york-enhances-criminal-liability-for-wage-theft\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T05:07:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:07:42","slug":"new-york-enhances-criminal-liability-for-wage-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/new-york-enhances-criminal-liability-for-wage-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Enhances Criminal Liability for Wage Theft"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On September 6, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law that amends the criminal larceny law to include wage theft. The amendment goes into effect immediately. This legislative action follows a February 16, 2023 announcement by the Manhattan District Attorney Office that it had partnered with the New York State Department of Labor to create the Office\u2019s first-ever \u201cWorker Protection Unit\u201d to investigate and criminally prosecute wage theft charges against companies and executives that \u201csteal\u201d wages.<\/p>\n

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On September 6, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed Senate Bill S2832A<\/a> into law, which amends the New York criminal larceny statute to include wage theft. Under existing New York law, \u201cA person . . . commits larceny when, with intent to deprive another of property or to appropriate the same to himself or to a third person, he wrongfully takes, obtains or withholds such property from an owner thereof.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new law adds a statutory description of larceny by wage theft: \u201cA person obtains property by wage theft when he or she hires a person to perform services and the person performs such services and the person does not pay wages, at the minimum wage rate and overtime, or promised wage, if greater than the minimum wage rate and overtime, to said person for work performed.\u201d It also amends the definition of \u201cproperty\u201d to include \u201ccompensation for labor or services.\u201d Depending on the amount of wages taken, larceny can be charged as a misdemeanor or a felony in New York.<\/p>\n

The bill\u2019s sponsors stated that \u201cwage theft in New York accounts for nearly $1 billion in lost wages each year and affects tens of thousands of workers.\u201d The sponsors also asserted that the amendment is necessary \u201cto allow aggregation of victims,\u201d which will \u201callow prosecutors to seek stronger penalties against employers who steal wages from workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notably, the new wage theft larceny law is in addition to, and does not replace, existing criminal wage theft offenses in New York. For example, New York Labor Law Section 198-a provides for criminal penalties for employers and their officers and agents for \u201cfailing to pay the wages of any of [their] employees.\u201d New York Labor Law Section 662 also makes it a crime for employers and their officers and agents to \u201cpay[] or agree[] to pay to any employee less than the [minimum] wage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Manhattan District Attorney\u2019s February 2023 announcement<\/a> suggested that the newly formed Worker Protection Unit will use the new legislation to pursue \u201cbad faith employers,\u201d who \u201ctak[e] advantage of\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0vulnerable populations, including low-income and undocumented New Yorkers.\u201d Employers who inadvertently fail to comply with New York\u2019s complex wage and hour laws, on the other hand, may be able to rely on the larceny statute\u2019s \u201cintent to deprive\u201d requirement as a defense. It also remains to be seen whether prosecutors will seek to apply the new law to compensation paid to independent contractors.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On September 6, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law that amends the criminal larceny law to include wage theft. The amendment goes into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[173,7588,4577,3708,724,326],"class_list":["post-10041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-criminal","tag-enhances","tag-liability","tag-theft","tag-wage","tag-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}