If a bride purposely lies on her marriage license, is the marriage legal?
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If a bride purposely lies on her marriage license, is the marriage legal?
Bride got re-married and used her e-x-husband’s SSN on her marriage license in place of her own therefore committing identity theft and fraud.
Asked on May 4, 2011 under Family Law, Illinois
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 13 years ago | Contributor
For a definitive answer, you need to consult with a family or matrimonial law attorney. As a general matter, as long as it is clear whom the person is who is getting married, the marriage would be valid despite an error in spelling the name or the social security number; you need to look at the whole context, and see if it is still clear that the "correct" person was getting married. As to whether this is identify theft or fraud, again, you need to look to the context--was there any benefit to the bride, or detriment to the husband? or was this simply an error without impact?--and also to the bride's state of mind--criminal liability depends on criminal intention; in most circumstances, an honest error is not criminal.
So for example, if the bride simply was used to writing the ex-husband's SS# (maybe she took care of banking, financing, insurance, and taxes, for example) and accidentally wrote his, not her own, that is a harmless error that just needs the paperwork to be corrected.
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