What are the penalties for lying under oath?

The statutory ceiling.

Federal perjury - 18 U.S.C. § 1621 (the general statute) and § 1623 (false declarations in court or grand jury) - carries up to five years per count, plus fines. Subornation - procuring someone else’s perjury under § 1622 - carries the same. Counts stack: separate false declarations can be charged separately, and a trial’s worth of testimony offers many sentences to charge.

What sentences actually look like.

Under the guidelines, perjury starts around offense level 14 - roughly 15 to 21 months for a first offender - and climbs where the lie caused substantial interference with justice. If the perjury shielded another crime, the guidelines cross-reference can import that crime’s offense level. And a defendant who testifies falsely in their own case picks up the obstruction enhancement, adding time to the underlying sentence and usually forfeiting acceptance-of-responsibility credit - a double hit.

The penalties beyond prison.

A perjury conviction is a credibility death sentence: professional licenses, immigration status, and any future testimony all carry it. Civil cases built on the testimony can unravel. And cooperation agreements - the main path to leniency in federal practice - are voided by a single provable lie, which is why prosecutors treat perjury as leverage even when they never charge it.

Where the defense lives.

Perjury is hard to prove well: the statement must be false (not just misleading - literal truth is a complete defense), willful (not confusion, mistake, or bad memory), and material. The question’s precise wording is everything. If testimony you gave is being read back to you by agents, the moment for counsel was yesterday; the second-best moment is before you answer anything else.

THE AUTHOR

Todd A. Spodek

Managing partner. Second-generation federal defense lawyer - the Netflix defense, the Fox and CNN analyst chair, and two decades of federal courtrooms.

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