Transmitting sexually explicit text messages to a 16-year-old girl violates a Penal Law statute that refers only to computers and does not mention telephones, the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, has held in the state’s first appellate court ruling on the issue.
The justices in Rochester held that even though Penal Law §235.22 makes no reference to telephonic communications, the conduct indicted in People v. Holmes, 12-00109, fits within the intent of the statute if not its precise words. They adopted the reasoning of then New York City Criminal Court Judge Charles Heffernan Jr. in a 1990 opinion that a telephone fits within the statutory definition of “computer” (People v. Johnson, 148 Misc 2d 103), at least when used in certain ways.
