Fraud Case for Woman Who Married Many Men

NEW YORK:

The year 2002 was very busy for a young woman named Liana Kristina Barrientos.

For one thing, she was married - on Long Island, on Valentine's Day.

For another, she married again, 15 days later, in Rockland County, to a different man.

Thirteen days after that, while still married to at least two men, she wed yet another, back on Long Island.

And then a few weeks later, about when the average bride might still be recovering from her honeymoon, Barrientos was named in a divorce proceeding initiated by a man she married three years before.

By the time 2002 was done, she would marry three more men, each in a different town in New York state.

All told, according to state records, she has married 10 men since 1999.

Friday is also going to be busy for Barrientos, who is now 39. She will be arraigned on felony fraud charges in the Bronx.

The fraud, Bronx prosecutors say, is that in 2010, for her most recent union, she wrote on her marriage license that she had never been married before. Furthermore, prosecutors say, each marriage after her first was obtained "without benefit of divorce."

Little more about Barrientos and her matrimonial spree can be said for sure, though much can be speculated.

The Bronx district attorney's office on Thursday said that the federal Department of Homeland Security, which handles some immigration affairs, was "involved" in the case. Agency officials did not respond to emailed questions.

Information on the immigration statuses of her husbands was not immediately available. Marriage applications must include the birth countries of the couple, but the state Health Department, the repository for those forms, said it was prohibited from giving out the information.

Barrientos' husbands' last names, in order, are Gerbril, Allam, Rahman, Koridze, Goktepe, Paharelau, Dzneladze, Rajput, Khorbaladze and Keita. Neither Bronx prosecutors nor officials with the Department of Homeland Security would say whether any of the men face charges.

Barrientos has past convictions for drugs and theft of services. She has divorced at least four times, from husbands Nos. 1, 2, 5 and 7, but long after marrying husbands 3 through 9.

A woman claiming to be the current wife of husband No. 5 sounded intrigued when a reporter called and explained that he was looking to speak to some of Barrientos' husbands or ex-husbands.

"You better talk to my husband," she said. He did not immediately call back. The wife did not give her name.

Another man, answering a phone that seemed to belong to husband No. 2, would not confirm that he knew Barrientos. But he patiently listened to a reporter's description of her situation before saying, "I really have no idea what you're talking about." He then hung up.

At an apartment building where Barrientos recently lived, in the Bronx, the site manager said she had left owing several months' rent.

The manager, Luz Garcia, said Barrientos and her husband moved into a first-floor apartment in the building, known as Rockwood Hall, last summer.

Garcia said the couple paid rent for July, but that was it. "She still owes us a lot of money," she said.

During the next few months, Garcia said, Barrientos gave birth in the building, but Garcia did not see her much. She said Barrientos would leave the building through a side exit.

A man now living in Barrientos' old apartment said she moved to a shelter four months ago.

On Facebook in March, Barrientos posted a cartoon of a large eyeball staring from a bathroom mirror at a woman wrapped in a towel.

"Kristina is feeling watched," the caption read.