if someone is turned in for insurance fraud are they the only ones held responsible?

Questioner:

This is really a question of criminal law. In order to be found criminally responsible for insurance fraud, you have to have, with intent, engaged in behavior designed to defraud the insurance company, such as filing a false claim or lying about eligibility. According to your question, you had no knowledge as to the apparant wrong doing by your husband or father-in-law. Provided that this is in fact true, you cannot be held criminally responsible for alleged fraud that you did not know existed. In short a spouse cannot be vicarioulsy criminally liable for the unkown crimes of the other spouse.

Further, in New York a spousal privilege exists. This means that any confidential communication between spouses during the marriage is privilegd to the outside world. Further, no one spouse may waive the privilege unilaterally. Only upon consent of both spouses can the privilege be wiaved. This means that if you learned of the alleged fraud through a confidentail spousal communication, your husband would have to agree to any disclosure of it by you. On the other hand, if you learned of the alleged fraud through an observation or non-confidential dislcosure (such as a statement to you when others were present) then you can decide whether to disclose the statement and further be compelled to tetsify to the non-confidential statement.

The foregoing was for general informational purposes only. No attorney client relationship was formed nor implied by the answeirng of this general question.

Insurance fraud is a crime in NY, a crime generally has specific requirements before guilt can be established... one of those requirements is an act (actus reus) and a guilty mindset (mens rea) by your definisiton i would argue you lacked both as you did not personally engage nor benefit from this fraud, nor did you know of this fraud... as such i can not reasonable see a way that such a charge would hold against you.

Given your lack of intent, knowledge, or participation in the alleged fraud, the technical answer is no. However, you should be careful not to incrinimate yourself and/or expose yourself to false and other claims by your future ex with regard to your involvment in this scheme (which I understand from your facts above is likely nil).

I hope this helps.

Disclaimer: This answer is for informational purposes only and does not constitute general or specific legal advice, nor create an attorney client relationship.