What would the penalty be if a wife used her own credit card to order things from the internet and then blamed the husband, in court during ...

Question

What would the penalty be if a wife used her own credit card to order things from the internet and then blamed the husband, in court during divorce proceedings? Isn't this fraud?

Answer

It would be perjury, and if you can prove it, you can always take it to the county attorney, but generally speaking, no one's real interested in prosecuting every lie told in family court. Otherwise, we'd have a much bigger prison crisis, jails overflowing with bitter, middle class divorcees trying to stick it to their spouse. A county in central Kentucky recently made an example of a woman who lied in a domestic violence hearing, charging her with perjury, but that's one they take very seriously, because of the level of harm that results. Making a false statement under oath, while a crime, probably won't pique the interest of the county attorney, when the harm is paying bills that are still marital debt anyway.