US woman admits to lying about astronaut wife draining her bank account from the Space Station
One former US Air Force intelligence officer has now admitted to lying about a claim she made regarding her now ex-wife, as she previously accused her former partner of accessing her bank account while she was on board the International Space Station.
Divorces are rarely simple and there's often an accusation or two thrown from either side at the other person that might not be as true as it initially seems in the proceedings.
Few claims are as extravagant or otherworldly as one made by ex-Air Force intelligence officer Summer Worden however, as she claimed that her then-wife, Annie McClain, had 'illegally accessed' a private bank account while the latter was in space.
It's not exactly somewhere that you imagine such an incident to be taking place, yet the accusation appeared all the same during their divorce battle, especially as it involved an ongoing custody battle of their 6-year-old son, who had been conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF) and carried by a surrogate.
Advert
As reported by CNBC, Worden was initially indicted in 2020 over her claim, and has now pleaded guilty to lying to federal authorities, which include NASA's Office of the Inspector General and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Worden's initial accusation alleged that "her estranged spouse had guessed the password and illegally accessed her bank account while the spouse was deployed to the International Space Station," according to the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas.
McClain was on board the International Space Station for a period of six months, stretching between December 2018 and June 2019.
The office clarified that the account in question had actually been opened in April 2018, and both partied had indeed accessed it until January 2019 when the credentials were changed by the former Air Force employee.
"The investigation revealed Worden had granted her spouse access to her bank records from at least 2015, including her login credentials," the statement continued, and McClain's attorneys added back in 2019 in a statement to the New York Times that the bank account was accessed merely to check the family's finances, and that she was never under the impression that she wasn't able to do so.
McClain herself also shared on X that "there's unequivocally no truth to these claims. We've been going through a painful, personal separation that's now unfortunately in the media.
"I appreciate the outpouring of support and will reserve comment until after the investigation. I have total confidence in the IG process."
Worden, having already pleaded guilty, is currently free on bond but will be officially sentenced on February 12 next year. She faces a maximum possible sentence for the crime, which is up to five years in prison.
Had Worden's claims been true, McClain would have been the first person to have committed a crime in space, but there's perhaps no better alibi than being on board the International Space Station where your ever move is heavily monitored.