Woman Pleads Guilty to Lying About Astronaut Wife Accessing Her Bank Account From Space

Who has jurisdiction to prosecute a crime committed in space? That was the novel question raised in 2019 when a woman accused her estranged spouse, an astronaut, of accessing her bank account without permission while the astronaut was aboard the International Space Station. Now the Earth-bound woman has pleaded guilty to lying to government investigators about her astronaut wife.

Summer Heather Worden approached the FTC in 2019 and accused her then-wife, astronaut Anne McClain, of guessing her password to access Worden’s bank account. Worden, a former Air Force intelligence officer, reportedly told the same story to the NASA Office of Inspector General, according to the Department of Justice.

The couple was engaged in a custody dispute over their son, who was 6 years old at the time and had been conceived through IVF and a surrogate. McClain denied the charges that she’d accessed and changed the password to the bank account in a tweet from Aug. 2019.

“There’s unequivocally no truth to these claims. We’ve been going through a painful, personal separation that’s now unfortunately in the media,†McClain wrote. “I appreciate the outpouring of support and will reserve comment until after the investigation. I have total confidence in the [Inspector General] process.â€

McClain had been scheduled earlier that year to participate in the first all-women spacewalk, which was postponed because there weren’t enough properly fitted spacesuits. The spacewalk did eventually happen in October 2019.

Worden was charged in 2020 with making false statements to federal investigators. McClain didn’t deny accessing the bank account from space but said that it was a shared account and she had permission. Worden alleged that her wife accessing the account was a form of identity theft. But federal prosecutors said Worden’s claims about when the bank account was created and when it was accessed didn’t line up, according to the Houston Chronicle.

In 2022, additional charges, including wire fraud, were added over a land purchase deal from 2017 in Spicewood, Texas. Worden allegedly bilked eight people, including her now-ex-wife, out of $200,000 when she bought an investment property and kept the profits for herself rather than sharing with her other investors, the Chronicle reports.

Worden, whose trial was scheduled to begin Monday, pleaded guilty last Thursday to making materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements to the FTC and the NASA Office of Inspector General.

Prosecutors have agreed to drop all the charges against Worden in exchange for pleading guilty to making false statements to investigators. Worden, who is free on bond according to CNBC, will be sentenced in February 2026 and still faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. She’ll also be required to pay restitution to any fraud victims in the property deal.