More and more, lawyers are combing the internet for evidence to use in divorce and child custody cases. That’s right, the stuff you post online might find its way into the body of evidence in family court.
In one child custody case, a woman’s lawyers used “a YouTube video of her former spouse partying on a 60-foot yacht in the Bahamas with multiple women” to persuade the judge that he was a bad parent.
In another example...
Chicago divorce attorney Dean Dussias had a client who was concerned his wife was cheating on him with someone over the Internet. After conducting searches and finding alias names in emails, Dussias discovered she was performing sexual acts and streaming the video on the Web for money.Awesome. But if that doesn't make you cringe at the prospect of divorce proceedings, check out this even wilder story...
In May, Angela Voelkert [29] created a fake profile on Facebook. Posing as a 17-year-old girl, and allowing a friend to manage communications. She did this in an effort to collect damning evidence against her ex-husband, David Voelkert, age 38. Messages between David and the fake profile were used in a restraining order application filed on June 1. Allegedly, the communications were to be used in a child custody hearing this month as well.The woman used her alias to get her ex-husband to admit to bugging her car. She even got him to talk about his plan to have her killed as he tried to get the teen (as played by his ex) to help find some “gang bangers” at school to do the job. Eventually, she was able to use these fake correspondences to get him arrested.
But wait! It turns out he was playing her all along! He knew the whole time he was talking to his ex -- he'd written a notarized affidavit at the start of communications -- and was just trying to gain evidence that she was harassing him.
Ah the joys of marriage, infidelity, and divorce. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just live our lives without the courts getting involved...
