Will lying about marital status to get out of Army get you in trouble?

[Nana bug]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Alabama
We just found out my daughter in law somehow got her status changed to divorced and is trying to get out of the Army on the Family Care Plan. My son kept their child while she was deployed. She has been home since Feb 2013 and re-enlisted for three years before she got home. They agreed on divorce when she got home. My son lives in a different state. She won't let him see the child, hangs up on him when he calls, blocked him from fb, and he just got a card back that he mailed to his son. He just recently found out that she has told everyone on Post that they are divorced. He has not filed for divorce nor has he been served with divorce papers or signed any. Can she get in trouble under UCMJ for lying about it in order to get out?

 

[Proserpina]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Alabama
We just found out my daughter in law somehow got her status changed to divorced and is trying to get out of the Army on the Family Care Plan. My son kept their child while she was deployed. She has been home since Feb 2013 and re-enlisted for three years before she got home. They agreed on divorce when she got home. My son lives in a different state. She won't let him see the child, hangs up on him when he calls, blocked him from fb, and he just got a card back that he mailed to his son. He just recently found out that she has told everyone on Post that they are divorced. He has not filed for divorce nor has he been served with divorce papers or signed any. Can she get in trouble under UCMJ for lying about it in order to get out?

Yes, she can be penalized.

Your son though needs to make sure that he hasn't been served via publication or similar.

 

[milmom]

You don't need to be divorced to be required to have a family care plan. If she is being separated because she lacks a family care plan, that doesn't mean she lied about no longer being married.

It would be very difficult for her to officially change her status in DEERS to divorced without s certified copy of the divorce decree. If she's just running around telling people she's not married anymore although not very honest, May be inconsequential. It depends on who she's lying to and why she's lying.

Is your son active duty also? If so he can check with admin and see if he's still in the system as married, if not active duty, he can call tricare and see if he's still covered, for one way to find out.

ETA: I'm assuming he's not active duty, because if he was they would have both required a family care plan already.

 

[Nana bug]

He is no longer active duty. He has been in contact with IG and they told him her status in the army computer says divorced. They are investigating how that was changed and they said they would require she provide proof of divorce before they let her out on lack of Family Care Plan. Since they are still married, she has a family care plan, him. Even if they were divorced, he would still be her family care plan as the child is his too. I was their FCP when they were both active duty. He got out on June 13, 2012 after 6 years and two deployments with honorable discharge and she deployed on June 14, 2012. We don't know how to find out if she divorced him via publication.

 

[milmom]

I'm not familiar with what all is required for a family care plan in the Army, I'm in the air force. In the air force you're required to have (documented with POAs) a local civilian short term care provider, civilian long term care provider (can be out of the local area) and an alternate local provider that may be active duty. If the Army had similar requirements your son, if in the area could be (and should be) short and long term provider. If he's not still in mom's local area she could still be failing to provide a local person, or an incomplete plan.

If the IG is looking into how she changed her status I would wait and see what they dig up. Again, it's highly unlikely her status was officially changed without a legal divorce decree. I had a heck of a time getting mine changed even with all the required legal paperwork. They should retain copies of the paperwork provided to make the change, they made a copy of the first page and signed page of my decree to attach to my change application.

If you know what county she may have filed in, your son can search court dockets for his and/or her name to see if there were any hearings. I'll let the seniors weigh in on the steps he can take if he finds out there was a divorce granted and whether he was improperly served.

 

[Nana bug]

I don't know what I just did hitting send report as I'm new in here, so I'll try this again. If she hasn't gotten a divorce without his knowledge but told her chain of command she has with the goal of getting out of the Army, then isn't that against the UCMJ? Wouldn't she have to fill out some kind of form to request getting out due to lack of FCP and wouldn't that be falsifying govt documents?

 

[milmom]

Reporting the post I made had it removed. It's used for spam or inappropriate posts/replies.

What's the reason you're so concerned with whether or not she's violated the ucmj? At this point your son should find out if a divorce was wrongly granted and figure out his next step in custody/support issues for his child.

Ucmj violations matter not. And as I said before, a married military member can be separated for lack of family care plan if they aren't living with their spouse and have a child, getting kicked out for a lack of family care plan doesn't mean she lied and said she was divorced. If the IG says her records lost her as divorced your son should find out asap how that happened, not to get her for ucmj violations, but to figure out of there was a divorce and how to deal with that. For all he knows she has sole legal and physical custody and a support order.

Frankly it's your son's business not yours.

And he should speak to an attorney where his wife may have gotten a divorce.

 

[Shadowbunny]

The Army requires a FCP when the Soldier is Single, in the case of Dual-Military, or if the Soldier's spouse is incapacitated and unable to care for the children. So if she provided proof of her divorce to DEERS (or the servicing personnel office), then she would be required to do an FCP or risk being discharged. She can't just "claim" she's divorced, she MUST provide proof to change her status from married to single.