Is lying in an application for a job at a private company, signed under penalty of perjury, prosecutable as perjury?

A person applies for a job at the XYZ company. The XYZ company is a private company. As part of applying he fills out an application and signs it under penalty of perjury. The application has several lies in it. Can he be criminal prosecuted for perjury? If his signature had been notarized after he signed it, would that effect the answer?

What part of the application are you asking about? There are some parts of job applications where a penalty of perjury can (and often must) apply, such as tax forms, verification of authorization to work in the United States, or, in the case of jobs requiring a security clearance, the application for the security clearance. Lying about your experience on an application to a private company isn't perjury in most cases, though. Just putting the words "under penalty of perjury" on the application doesn't mean it actually is. That would have to be backed up by a law making it perjury.

This seems like a slightly more specific duplicate of Is a lie + "under penalty of perjury" enough to be perjury?.

4 Answers 4

A "penalty of perjury" statement includes not just the warning about penalty of perjury, the person signing avows that the statements are true to the best of their knowledge. If you lie on such a statement, and if the "penalty of perjury" statement is legally allowed (typically, mandated), then the person can be prosecuted. However, XYZ cannot arbitrarily inject the risk of perjury, that requires some legal authorization. An example would be if XYZ is employing the person under a Defense Department contract that requires a sworn statement. The federal perjury statute characterises this as being when "a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered". The only effect of notarization is that it decreases the probability that the person could effectively argue "I never even signed this statement, that's a forgery".

I was thinking that the XYZ company just had the statement put in to discourage applicants from lying. That is, there is no government requirement that the application be signed uner penalty of perjury. Perhaps it was added on the whim of a CEO who does not have a legal background.

In terms of terminology a statement made under penalty of perjury without a notarization is called a "declaration" while a statement made under penalty of perjury before a notary who has administered (or is supposed to have administered) an oath that signing it means it is true is called an "affidavit." A notarization of something that isn't inherently true or false confirming that you personally signed something to authorize it is called an "acknowledgement".

The important point about notarization is that the notary has no responsibility regarding the facts on the statement, they're only responsible for confirming that the signature belongs to the person who signed it.

@Bob, if an employer put a statement in a contract about "perjury" without any legal standing behind it, that would be a red flag to not sign the document. They obviously haven't had legal counsel look at it, or, if they did, they ignored the advice of legal counsel which means they are likely to ignore legal counsel in other areas as well as advice in pretty much any other matter. This spells pure danger to anyone working for them. TLDR: run, don't walk, away from this.

"A declaration under penalty of perjury typically follows such language: “I declare (or certify, verify, or state) under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct.”" - aw hell naw. Make myself liable for something you said and not something I typed? A signed affidavit? No. Never. Not unless you're going to pay me $200k a year.