Cheaters Leaving Trails Of Lies On Facebook
It started as a way for college students to network, but over the past few years Facebook has become an Internet phenomenon.
Many people are spending large amounts of time on the social networking site. Some of the decisions some users are making online are even affecting marriages.
Lawyers say some cheating spouses are playing out their affairs on Facebook, never realizing the trail of ammunition they're leaving.
"My ex-wife was on Facebook. I knew she was on it," said one man.
What the man, who asked not to be identified, said he did not know was how his ex-wife used Facebook to fuel her extramarital affairs.
"I found it very odd that many nights her not coming to bed, instead spending hours on Facebook and because I was not very familiar with it, I didn't realize you could chat and do all these different things," he said. "She found an ex-boyfriend. She also built a relationship through Facebook."
"Facebook is tempting and too much temptation leads a lot of people astray," said family law attorney Louis P. Winner.
When Winner noticed an increasing number of clients citing Facebook-related issues as the reason for their divorce, he wrote an article in the Louisville Bar Briefs on how family law attorneys can use Facebook to dig up cyber-dirt on cheating spouses.
"On average, I'm seeing one in five people come in mentioning Facebook as -- here's a cause or here's a catalyst," Winner said.
Other divorce attorneys said they're seeing information from Facebook crop up in cases every week.
"I've been involved in depositions where my clients have been deposed and the other side comes in with some pictures of a Facebook profile that I can't imagine any rational person posting, and there it is: my client in a compromising position for the public to see," said attorney Hugh Barrow.
"As long as people are dumb enough to post their life to the whole world, it's perfectly appropriate to use those in a court proceeding," said divorce attorney Diana Skaggs.
"In every case it's something that I inquire about and look at now -- is there a Facebook page out there and how may that hurt my client? Take it down. Now. Yesterday," Skaggs said.
"You may have to think of it as anything you're going to put on Facebook -- pictures, the comments you make, the comments your friends make -- think of it as a divorce attorney may read that," said Winner.
"Basically anything that you see on the screen for the most part is saved on your computer somewhere," said computer forensics expert Andy Cobb.
Cobb said divorce attorneys and suspicious husbands or wives hire his company to pull up past posts, pictures, private chat and very personal videos the cheater may think are long gone.
"Since the computer is marital property they have equal rights to it so we can be asked by one of the spouses to go in and make a copy of the computer and then bring it back for examination," said Cobb. "A lot more evidence than people realize is there."
"A picture paints 1,000 words. Well, we had hundreds of pictures that painted thousands of words," said the man who discovered his wife's extra-marital affairs on Facebook.
"I guess the thing that surprises me is people are so blatant about it and part of me thinks they want to get caught," Cobb said.
This scorned husband said while his wife is the one who filed for divorce, she didn't realize he and his attorney would find evidence on Facebook. He said she was stunned when the evidence was presented in court.
"Every action has a reaction and everything that you put there is in black and white, everything you say there is proof," he said.
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