Lawyers Using Facebook to Catch Cheating Spouses
Before the advent and spread of social media web sites like Facebook, a lawyer investigating a divorce case would probably use the traditional methods: private investigation and subpoenas.
Now, though, a lawyer starts his or her investigation online, with a check on Facebook for any incriminating evidence, according to an article from CNN.
More and more, divorce attorneys are adapting to the dynamic world of social media, and learning how to track their clients and their cases online. In divorce cases, photos, profile information, comments and status updates can all provide information and evidence that lawyers can use to build their cases.
According to a survey of lawyers by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, more than 80 percent of attorneys saw a rise in the cases that took advantage of social media for evidence.
Photos of people hugging and kissing can reveal an affair or infidelity, which is just the sort of information that a divorce lawyer can use while building a case. Lawyers have also said that social media leads to more opportunities for unfaithful spouses to cheat, because it is easier to reconnect with old flames. And often in these modern times, where there are relationships and get-togethers, there are photos. And often those photos make it online.
CNN spoke with Ken Altshuler, a divorce lawyer in Maine, who uses such tactics in his own divorce cases. In one such instance, a female client recently came to Altshuler asking for help divorcing her husband, who she claimed was an alcoholic who had started to drink again. The husband denied the allegation, and there was no way for either side to resolve it, creating a stalemate of her word against his.
That is, of course, until a friend of the female client discovered a photo on Facebook that showed the husband drinking a beer at a party. Altshuler showed the photos to the judge in the divorce case, and the wife won.
“Facebook is a great source of evidence,” said Altshuler. “It’s absolutely solid evidence because he’s the author of it. How do you deny that you put that on?”
Facebook is currently the online hub where most lawyer activity occurs surrounding divorce cases. And as Facebook reduces the severity of default privacy settings, the opportunities to collect evidence rise. Facebook, though, has acknowledged recently that privacy settings should be more easily managed, so perhaps this will lead to a decrease in the harvest of helpful images for divorce lawyers.
“It’s becoming all but impossible to protect your information unless you spend hours and hours figuring it out,” said divorce attorney Lee Rosen, who himself admitted to using Facebook in a recent case. Rosen had seen a suspicious Facebook status message on a husband’s profile. The husband had been accused of cheating, and the message was from a female co-worker. That lead took Rosen where he needed his investigation to go. He said that about 25 percent of his cases use social media.
Giovanni Masucci is a digital investigator who works for a social media search service. He said that about half of cases using social media expose some kind of cheating.
“For example, someone may be cheating, but they are married,” Masucci said. “If their status on the web page says single, that’s a major red flag.”
