Washington,April 11: A woman named Liana Barrientos from New York has been accused of marrying 10 men, without actually divorcing many of them.
According to the court records, 39-year-old Barrientos, who’s dubbed a “serial” bride, could be facing 4 years of jail time is she’s found guilty of the charges, ABC News reported.
However, the Bronx woman has plead not guilty on two counts of offering a false instrument for filing after police accused her of lying on her recent 10th marriage application, and license in 2010 by signifying that she was never married before.
The authorities claim that they found Barrientos had licenses for 9 other marriages, which took place between November 1999 and August 2002, filed in the Bronx, Westchester County, Long Island and elsewhere in New York, and hadn’t changed her first and last name in any of them.
However, in her ninth marriage certificate, her first name was spelled as “Lyana” while her last name was written as “Barrientes”, according the records, which also said she filed her 10th marriage license on March 4, 2010.
The Bronx District Attorney’s Office said in a statement that the she was believed to be currently married to 4 people, and at one time she was married to 8 of them at the same time. They indicated that seven of the men are from so-called “red-flagged’ countries, which included Egypt, Turkey, Georgia, Pakistan and Mali.
Former FBI agent Manny Gomez said that it was a huge security breach, and it was possible for someone from al Qaeda to just come in and marry the woman to be in the country legally.
The authorities are now investigating where Barrientos’ 10 “husbands” currently were and their reason for coming to the U.S.