State prosecutors urge overhaul of New York's white-collar fraud statutes in hearing
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Summary
Prosecutors, attorneys general and district attorneys told a joint Senate hearing New York's scheme-to-defraud and related statutes are outdated and hinder prosecutions of modern, large-scale frauds; witnesses urged the "Scam Act," grand-jury reforms and new felony tiers tied to victims and scale.
Senator Myrie convened a joint hearing of the Senate Codes and Consumer Protection committees in Albany to press for modernization of New York's white-collar crime laws, saying the state's fraud statutes date from 1986 and cannot reach many contemporary schemes.
"It is time we do something about it," Myrie said, recounting interactions with student loan servicers who declined to answer legislative questions and arguing that "no one is accountable, and the borrower is the one that is trapped inside." The chair framed the hearing around the need for statutory changes to hold sophisticated actors to account.
Stephanie Swinton, chief of the Attorney General's Financial Crimes Bureau, told the committee that three targeted reforms would make prosecutions feasible: expanding the scope of business-record certification in grand-jury proceedings, permitting video testimony for witnesses who cannot appear in person, and adding graduated felony levels to the scheme-to-defraud statute so penalties rise with the scale or number of victims. "If this already accepted certification process were extended to all business records, it would greatly streamline our grand jury process," Swinton said.
District attorneys backed the proposals. Alvin Bragg, Manhattan district attorney, said the Scam Act would allow prosecutors to match penalties to the scope of harm and better deter actors who carry out industrial-scale fraud. "Conduct that causes more widespread and severe harm should be eligible for more severe charges," Bragg said.
DA Lee Kinlin of Albany and Alona Katz, chief of Brooklyn's virtual-currency unit, recounted lengthy, document- and witness-heavy prosecutions that are time-consuming and resource intensive under current law. Katz urged provisions to allow admission of crypto-exchange records by affidavit and faster processes to return stolen cryptocurrency to victims.
Prosecutors and the attorney general also recommended allowing certain testimony by affidavit for narrowly defined identity-theft or stolen-property situations and suggested alternative felony triggers tied to the number of victims (for example, thresholds for 50, 100 or 1,000 victims) when asset valuation is ambiguous.
The chairs and witnesses emphasized that these changes would not eliminate due process protections but would make grand-jury procedures and sentencing tools more proportionate to modern schemes in which many victims suffer relatively small losses that together amount to large-scale theft.
The committee said it will consider the testimony as it drafts legislation for the 2026 session. Chair Myrie closed by urging continued collaboration between law enforcement and the legislature to produce statutory updates that reflect digital-era fraud methods.