Florida lacks checks to catch bigamists
(wtf story of the day from my state)
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20130602/NEWS01/306020045/Florida-lacks-checks-catch-bigamists
A signature and a lie are all it takes to have multiple wives, or husbands, at the same time in Florida.
Its a criminal act, punishable by up to five years in prison, to lie on a marriage application. And if someone chooses to commit fraud and chance the consequences, theyll most likely get away with it: There are no checks in place to verify if a person has other marriages.
We dont have any responsibility, its not part of the process to verify that, if a person was married in 2007 and now its 2013 ... that theyve been divorced in that time, said Laurie Rice, chief deputy at the Brevard County Clerks office.
In Brevard County in the past five years, there have been seven people charged with bigamy, a third-degree felony. In one of those cases, a man was sentenced to probation after police found out he was married to at least four women at the same time.