Want to punish your ex’s new spouse? Move to North Carolina, where apparently they still have “alienation of affection” laws on the books:

Raeford, N.C. — A Hoke County woman owes her husband’s former wife $500,000 after a jury ruled that she broke up a 50-year marriage.

Laura Patterson sued Herlinda Basurto in December 2007, alleging alienation of affection and criminal conversation, a legal term for adultery.

Patterson blamed Basurto, 30, for seducing her husband, Alford Patterson, 69. The couple married in 1957 and divorced last year, and Alford Patterson and Basurto subsequently married.

…

“I don’t think that the jury knew what they were doing,” Alford Patterson said. “I mean, think about it. Half a million dollars, and Laura’s sitting at the beach now as if she’s going to get that, which she won’t. I mean, you don’t get something that isn’t there.”

He said the 50 years they spent together was anything but marital bliss.

“(We) had problems from Day 1,” he said. “Laura tried to portray this as being the most lovable marriage that ever hit the United States.”

Laura Patterson had several affairs of her own through the years, her ex-husband said.

She denied that allegation.

I actually started reading the comments, which I usually avoid on news stories. (Incidentally, the “Go Local” service that provides WRAL’s comments may have stumbled on a fitting name for most comment sections with its abbreviation: GoLo.) There’s everything in there from “if you’re going to cheat, move out of NC first” through “why blame the new wife? blame the husband” to “a woman on the jury has a cheating husband, so the verdict should be tossed.”

Via Overlawyered.