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> You can pursue a civil damages claim against someone. I suspect that’s all you’re talking about in NZ. The government doesn’t have a dog in the fight though.

No, in the case I’m referring to, the charge was criminal, and it was Fraud. John Davy was sentenced to gaol and then deported.

It caused a stir at the time, because few people realized that if you tell lies on your resume, that is fraud in the classic, criminal sense of the term.

When you think about the legal principles, it makes sense. A resume is a document, and a prospective employer has a right to rely on the information on that document as being factual. You “use” that document to obtain a benefit — in this case a high-paying job.

If everything is on the up-and-up, all is well. Nobody is harmed because the truth has been told.

However, if that document contains outright lies, then it is fraud: the employer would never have given the high-paying job except for having been deceived by the false resume.

That’s not a merely a civil tort: that is a criminal act. It is “usinc a document for pecuniary advantage.” By using a false resume you have “stolen” a high-paying job from others who have genuine qualifications. You have deceived your employer into believing you have qualifications and experience that you do not. Your employer is paying for something that he isn’t getting, through trickery and deception.

In John Davy’s case, he applied to be the CEO of Maori Television. It was a very hi-paying job by New Zealand standards, and it involved a fair bit of commercial risks. His employers were entitled to a CEO with significant experience and they were willing to pay good honest money for it. They did not deserve to be deceived by a two-bit flim-flam bunco artist from Canada with a degree from the “Denver State University” obtained, probably, from the Internet.

Weasels like John Davy need to go to gaol when they trick people like this.

I can see no reason at all why a similar principle could not apply in the United States.