Legal Question in Family Law in Texas
If a divorce has been given a final decree over 4 years ago and 2 years later the ex-wife files for a modification that has been settled in another mediation that intels the ex-husband to get a DNA test for a third child, and then months afterwards a DNA test proved that a child an ex-wife gave birth to was not the child of the ex-husband, could the ex-wife be referred to the DA for perjury if she knew a child she gave birth to was not the child of the ex-husband?
1 Answer from Attorneys
If the statement that the child was her ex-husband's was actually made under oath AND was very specific AND you could somehow prove that at the time she made the statement, she knew that it was not true and deliberately lied about it, sure she could be prosecuted for perjury.
In the real world, though, probably not, unless there's something along the lines of a nice writing or recorded statement from her along the lines of, "Yeah, I lied and said the baby was his--of course I knew it wasn't his, but I figured he might not find out, and if I hadn't lied, how else would I have gotten any child support?" If you actually have something like that, congratulations--go for it. Otherwise, even a perjury charge is very unlikely to happen, much less a conviction, given the inherent difficulty of proving criminal intent based solely on what was going on in her mind when she said that.
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