Cheating Spouse Private Investigator Insights

30Dec06

THE investigation of adultery, missing persons and fraud is proving a growth industry for new Gold Coast company Magnum Investigations.

Founded by former New Zealand firefighter and police officer Rob Comer, the firm has a full workbook and is poised for global expansion just five months after starting up.

“In the first month it was quiet but I used that time to network with lawyers and large investigation companies,” said Mr Comer.

“Within the space of a few weeks the telephone was ringing hot.”

The launch of the firm’s website had also sped up the rate of inquiry.

Mr Comer said that while much of his caseload was missing persons, a high growth area was the investigation of suspected infidelity.

“It is huge and not so much about the legal or financial implications, they (the clients) just want to know,” he said.

“There is usually an unhappy atmosphere at home and they want to do something about it, otherwise they stay in that sick feeling zone.

“For the sake of a day or two of investigation they can make the decision to either sort things out or go their own way,” said Mr Comer.

Another area starting to take off is corporate work involving insurance fraud, employers wanting to check on the honesty of staff and companies investigating the credentials of potential joint-venture partners.

Magnum’s workload has grown to the extent that Mr Comer employs contract investigators in most interstate capitals to handle jobs he cannot carry out personally.

Assignments can take a day or go on for weeks and can get complicated.

Tailing someone can involve several changes of clothing, loss of sleep, sharp impromptu skills and getting on a flight at very short notice.

One case, where a wife suspected her husband of infidelity while away at work, required the infiltration of the remote construction camp where he was employed.

Another, in an interstate capital, saw one of Mr Comer’s contractors following a philandering husband around the city streets and through several nightclubs from 10am until 5am the following day.

Mr Comer has also been hired to comb the Coast’s schoolies festival to find a 14-year-old Brisbane girl thought to have fallen into bad company.

He is now preparing to launch another agency that will specialise in international missing persons — an area he believes has growth potential.

Cases would typically involve locating children at the centre of custody battles and tracking down celebrities or persons of interest for lawyers or media organisations.

Mr Comer said he was seeking experienced operatives to help him cope with the growing demand.

Infidelity expert Ruth Houston’s Third annual list of top ten infidelity news stories for the year 2006.

(PRWeb) December 26, 2006 — This is the third annual list of top infidelity news stories for the year compiled by Ruth Houston, a New York- based infidelity expert who is frequently called on by the media to comment on infidelity-related breaking news, celebrity infidelity, high profile infidelity court cases and popular infidelity issues in the news. Ruth Houston is the founder of www.InfidelityAdvice.com and the author of Is He Cheating on You? - 829 Telltale Signs.

1. Brokeback Mountain won 3 Oscars and spawned the term “Brokeback marriages”, focusing national attention on same-sex infidelity and gay married men.

2. BET’s documentary, “The Down Low Exposed” raised public awareness of same-sex infidelity among Black men as a contributing factor to the high rate of HIV/AIDS among Black women.

3. The arrest of Richard Kudlik, a married man who impersonated a US Marshal to dupe 11 single women into having affairs with him, through a chat room for women over 40. This brought widespread attention to married men trolling dating sites to find unsuspecting single women with whom to have extramarital affairs.

4. Super model Christie Brinkley’s divorce from Peter Cook because of his year long affair with a 19-year-old toy store employee, whom he seduced after hiring her to work as his $50-an-hour personal assistant.

5. Worldwide Valentine’s Day Infidelity Awareness campaign spearheaded by infidelity expert Ruth Houston, founder of InfidelityAdvice.com, alerting infidelity victims that on Valentine’s Day infidelity reaches its peak, thus making it the best day to catch a cheating mate, and the busiest day of the year for PI’s specializing in infidelity investigations.

6. Jim McGreevey’s book, The Confession, discussing the intimate details of his same sex infidelity with an aide, which ultimately led to his resignation as governor of New Jersey and subsequent divorce.

7. ABC’s Prime Time Special “Out of Control: AIDS in the Black Community” which linked the HIV/AIDS epidemic among Blacks to the failure of the Black clergy to address the problem of same-sex infidelity. It spurred Black churches nationwide to take an active role in educating Black women about Black men on the down low.

8. The Federal investigation of New York attorney general candidate Jeanine Pirro for asking ex-NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik to bug her husband’s boat because she suspected him of having yet another extramarital affair.

9. Reese Witherspoon’s divorce from Ryan Philippe because of his alleged affair with Australian actress Abbie Cornish while filming “Stop-Loss.”

10. The resignation of anti-gay moral crusader Rev. Ted Haggard as head of the National Association of Evangelicals after the discovery of his 3-year same-sex affair with a gay male prostitute.

© 2006 Ruth Houston

—-Compiled by infidelity expert Ruth Houston, author of Is He Cheating on You? - 829 Telltale Signs, and founder of www.InfidelityAdvice.com

To interview Ruth, call 718 592-6039
For more information, visit the Press Room at www.InfidelityAdvice.com

ATTENTION : Editors, Reporters and Staff Writers
How many of these infidelity news stories did you cover in 2006?
Did you have ready access to an infidelity expert who could comment on:
• celebrity Infidelity
• high profile infidelity cases
• popular infidelity issues
• infidelity-related breaking news

Add infidelity expert Ruth Houston your expert file
and call her at 718 592-6039 whenever infidelity makes the news (and you can be sure it will) in 2007.

About Ruth Houston:
Infidelity expert, Ruth Houston is the founder of InfidelityAdvice.com and the author of Is He Cheating on You? - 829 Telltale Signswhich documents practically every known sign of infidelity, including the subtle signs usually overlooked..

Frequently called on by the media to comment on celebrity infidelity, high profile infidelity court cases, and popular infidelity issues in the news, Ruth has been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Post, Cosmopolitan, Newsday, the Toronto Sun , the National Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Miami Herald, City Life, iVillage, MSN Lifestyle, LavaLife, Netscape Love, Entertainment Online, Hollywood Heat, Yahoo Personals, Netscape Love, and numerous other print and online media.

Ruth has been a guest on The Today Show, Good Day New York, Ireland’s Late Late Show, 1010WINS, CNN, Telemundo, Court TV Radio, TalkAmerica, PowerTalkFM, BBC, CBC, Sirius Satellite Radio and over 270 radio and TV talk showsin the United States., Canada, Europe, South America, Australia, New Zealand and the Caribbean.

For more information, visit the PRESS ROOM at www.InfidelityAdvice.com

To interview Ruth Houston,
call 718 592-6039

###

Mobile phones are the biggest reason behind cheating Japanese husbands getting caught, according to a Shukan Post (12/22) survey on salaryman infidelity.

The top-selling men’s weekly probed 300 married salarymen, finding out that 74 percent had cheated on their wives at least once and 30.2 percent are still playing around.

“I’ve found out that about 80 percent of married men have played around at least once, so the Post findings don’t come as much of a shock at all. It just backs my findings,” Sanae Kameyama, writer of “Furin no Koi de Kurushimu Otokotachi (Men Burdened With Immoral Love),” tells Shukan Post.

Of the cheating salarymen, 35.8 percent had seen their extramarital affairs exposed, with mobile phones being the reason in 22.5 percent of cases. Other common methods of capture included smelling of perfume or being covered in cosmetics, and actually being caught red-handed.

“In my research, too, mobile phones were overwhelmingly the main reason men’s affairs have been discovered. It’s common sense to wipe out your call history and records of who you’ve called, but plenty of people are nabbed when their phones are checked,” Kameyama says. “Women know that the easiest way to check on their husbands is to take a look at their mobile phone records.”

That’s exactly how a 32-year-old Osaka housewife revealed her husband’s infidelity.

“Over the past couple of months, he started acting strangely. He took his phone with him wherever he went, even if it was only to pick up a packet of smokes. He also hid it under his clothes when he took them off to have a bath. He’d never behaved anything like this in the past,” the woman tells Shukan Post. “He wouldn’t check his phone e-mail when we were sitting around watching TV and the final straw for me came when he started hiding his phone under his pillow, saying he wanted to use it as an alarm clock to wake him in the mornings. I followed him one day and it didn’t take long before I spotted him walking along with his arm linked to a young hussy.”

Another woman used a slightly slyer means to catch out her love rat hubby.

“One night I got my husband’s mobile phone and noticed that late on Friday night he’d received 10 different phone calls from a ‘Taro Yamada (roughly the Japanese equivalent of “John Brown”).’ I thought it was a bit weird, so I called the number and the voice on the other end of the phone was clearly a young woman,” the 38-year-old housewife says.

Marriage guidance counselor Hiromi Ikeuchi says that when guys fall for someone other than their wife, they often give off plenty of signs.

“For instance, a man might talk about a new woman come to work in his office and what a nice woman she is. But if he actually starts having an affair with that woman, he’ll completely stop talking about her in the home,” she says. “Often guys give away their infidelity without ever realizing it.”

Catching love rats isn’t entirely a one-way street, though guys have a long way to go before they catch up with their spouses, as only a mere 9 percent of surveyed salarymen said they had caught their wife playing around.

“My guess is that about 80 percent of women wouldn’t mind having a fling and around 30 percent have probably gone through with their wish. I know of one woman who used to cart her 3-month-old baby around to the love hotels where she had her trysts with a secret lover,” Ikeuchi tells Shukan Post. “Starting from April next year, laws will be changed to allow career housewives to claim part of their husband’s pension payments in the event of a split. Many foresee a lot of divorcing going on among the middle-aged and elderly after that. I think that many women will be concealing their own infidelity while trying to find proof of their husbands’ cheating. You’ve got to be careful, you don’t know who you’re really married to.” (By Ryann Connell)

December 18, 2006

You know the drill for your spouse’s holiday office party. There will be stale snacks, tipsy co-workers and that guy with the dumb jokes who always corners you. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if you just stayed home and let your partner have some fun?

In a word — no. That’s the advice of relationship counselors.

“Tell all the spouses! Go to the party!” says Diane Sollee, a marriage therapist who founded SmartMarriages.com.

“The Christmas party is the workplace affair on steroids,” warns Peggy Vaughan, author of “The Monogamy Myth” and a former corporate consultant who founded DearPeggy.com. “It is playing with dynamite is what it is.”

Really? Just the old office gang, getting together for a few adult beverages and a laugh? What could possibly go wrong?

Well, there’s the obvious stuff. A Canon Copiers survey last year of its technicians in the United Kingdom found that 32 percent of service calls over the holidays were “to repair copier glass that had been sat on” or “to fix paper jams that revealed evidence of embarrassing images.”

Ah yes, copier high jinks, a staple of holiday parties. But that’s not where the unfortunate behavior ends. An independent survey of 1,000 office workers in the United Kingdom last year, cited by Canon, found that one-third of respondents have “kissed or gone home with a colleague.” Now we’re getting into problems that could last long after the holiday festivities are over.

University of California psychology Professor Dacher Keltner suggests you take a look at the numbers. His best estimate from the research he’s seen indicates that “35 to 60 percent of couples will experience infidelity.” A conservative estimate would be the University of Chicago’s “American Sexual Behavior” survey of married men and women, which found that 36 percent (22 percent of them men and 14 percent women) would have extramarital affairs.

And like everyone else who studies relationships, Keltner says the Christmas party is a setup for problems.

“You’ve got a collective gathering,” he says, “there’s the eggnog, you’re wearing a Santa hat …”

OK, but aren’t we getting a little paranoid here? After all, it is just a once-a-year party? Not really, says Sollee. She likes to cite the late Shirley Glass, a Baltimore psychologist who was one of the nation’s foremost experts on infidelity.

Glass noted the rise in the number of women in the workplace and the opportunity for interaction. She jokingly suggested that office buildings post a sign out front reading: “Danger, men and women working together here.”

That’s why Sollee suggests that spouses show up at the office regularly, from the holiday party to the company picnic.

“It’s just like war,” she says. “It is harder to shoot people you know. It is like going in and marking your territory.”

And if you suspect your spouse is having an affair, you should definitely go to the Christmas party, says author Ruth Houston. She wrote “Is He Cheating on You? 829 Telltale Signs.”

Seriously? 829 signs?

“Well, they are divided into 21 categories,” Houston says.

Oh, good. Because otherwise it was starting to sound a little obsessive.

Houston is a holiday party militant. If you suspect your spouse, she says, you can’t afford not to attend.

“If anything is going on, it will be evident,” says Houston. “Someone may be overly friendly, excessively curious, or even hostile.”

Houston also shared her special office party “hot tip” — go to the restroom as often as possible.

“Make a couple of trips,” Houston says. “You never know what you might hear. Go into a stall and hang out. Somebody might say something they aren’t supposed to say, like, ‘Did you see her face when his wife walked in?’ ”

So, have we completely taken the fun out of the holiday party? With 829 telltale signs to worry about, some spouses may be afraid to reach for a chicken wing for fear of setting off an alarm.

With that in mind, Cal’s Keltner offers a contrarian view by referencing the work of psychologist Adam Phillips, who wrote “On Flirtation,” a series of essays on why happily married people flirt.

Keltner says Phillips’ premise is that, “Romantic bonds are just fundamentally ambiguous, so we are constantly flirting. The idea is that we are playfully, rather than seriously, doing something that is universal and that by acknowledging that, it may in fact be beneficial to flirt.”

So how would that apply to the holiday office bash?

“By that theory,” he says, “the Christmas party is actually the glue that holds marriages together.”

So there’s your talking point. All you have to do is convince your spouse. And I’d like to wish you the best of luck.

“Don’t wait up, hon, I’m working a bit late tonight.”

Alex wasn’t alarmed when her lawyer husband uttered that line for the first time six years ago. Business is picking up, she thought, just what he wanted.

The phone call became a regular, expected event by the end of the year. Along with it were solo dinners and evenings that gave Alex plenty of time to think about what was really going on.

DIDN’T ADD UP

“I didn’t think anything of it at first, but then it became twice a week almost every week. Some things didn’t add up,” said Alex, who did not want her last name used.

“I’d get no answer on his cellphone and he’d say the battery was dead. I called his work line and no one would pick up. He told me he did his work in a conference room because it was quieter.”

Turns out, her husband was getting what he wanted, and Alex was the last to know about it. When she confronted him, he would deny he was having an affair and dodged her questions.

She asked his friends but they were mum on the topic. She checked his credit card and cellphone bills but found nothing that implicated him.

At the same time, Alex found that she was having self-esteem and trust issues. She felt insecure and rejected.

“I had no proof yet, but I wondered how he could love someone else,” she said.

At her wit’s end and in a last-ditch effort, Alex hired a private investigator to secretly tail her husband. Three weeks later, she showed her husband a picture of him walking hand-in-hand with a co-worker.

“His face went white like a ghost. He was stunned and, of course, he tried to make up an excuse,” she said. “I kicked him out.”

Alex and her husband divorced two years later.

When people are desperate for answers they turn to Winnipeg’s Janie Duncan, operator of Duncan Investigations, to obtain solid proof of a mate’s secret romps.

Her investigations into a person’s suspected infidelity have led her to the city’s seedy massage parlours.

“It’s a huge industry,” said Duncan, who’s been a private investigator for 17 years.

Trends seem to be changing. In the past, most of her clients were women. Today, more men are hiring her to find out just how faithful their wives are.

“It’s at epidemic proportions,” Duncan said. “People forget about their vows. They think the grass is greener on the other side but when the sex wears off the grass is never greener on the other side.

“People really aren’t as committed (as they used to be),” she said. “It’s easier to leave a marriage than to work on it.”

Based on recent cases, she’s found an increase in the number of people who cheat on a spouse with a friend. Once caught, women tend to admit their mistakes, apologize and seek counselling, Duncan said, while men deny, deny, deny, even if the evidence is in front of them.

“I can only take photos and videos of them going from point A to B. I can’t make any assumptions,” she said. “I’ll leave that up to the courts.”

Some people do their own sleuthing to catch a mate. Companies cash in on products such as electronics, CSI in a box, and computer software.

Oh, the lengths people will go to have piece of mind.

SEMEN DETECTER

One of the quirkier products Toronto-based Spy Tech distributes is the CheckMate semen detection test kit.

“I was surprised how popular the item is,” said Spy Tech owner Ursula Lebana. “I guess there’s still a lot of suspicion out there about cheating.”

CheckMate detects traces of dried semen in underwear and other articles after sex using the five-minute test. A chemical is applied to the stain, then transferred to trace paper before a reaction compound is added.

A colour reaction will let you know if semen is present. The solution doesn’t damage the test subject.

One Toronto father used it to find out of his 13-year-old daughter was sexually active, Lebana said.

Packs of two test kits sell for $50 on CheckMate’s website, www.getcheckmate.com.

Technology has improved by leaps and bounds, and so have the investigative tools and gadgets used to pry and spy. Cue James Bond.

For concrete evidence, tiny surveillance cameras can be used to catch an adulterous spouse in the throes of passion with someone else.

“Covert cameras can be so small that you can hide them in just about anything, and they can be wireless,” said Cheryl Stearns, operations manager of Optima Systems Inc. on Pembina Highway.

Hidden cameras can be wired into most household items. Planters, wall clocks, children’s toys, you name it.

Systems are so sophisticated they can send still images to a person’s cellphone, or people can dial in and watch whatever is happening in the room on a computer.

A basic hidden camera costs about $150, while advanced systems cost hundreds of dollars.

Polygraph tests, sound amplifiers, telephone conversation recorders, and GPS vehicle tracking devices are some of the other products and services out there.

It is illegal to attach a GPS device to a vehicle without the owner’s approval, Stearns said.

By CHRIS KITCHING

Alone in his computer room on a Saturday night, Tony clicked on sports website after sports website, scrolling through hockey summaries and updating his fantasy football team.

Splattered on every page were colourful ads featuring scantily clad women, sports magazine offers, and various unaffiliated websites. One of them caught his eye.

With his wife watching TV in the den and their two kids snug in bed, Tony nervously created a profile and searched the member database of an international online dating service.

He didn’t really understand why he was doing it, or what he was looking for, but he knew it had something to do with a feeling something in his relationship was absent.

“My wife and I were happy in an emotional sense, and we still are, but for awhile I felt like something was lacking and that I was bored sexually,” said Tony, which is not the 33-year-old man’s real name. “I regret that night. It changed my life.”

Tony deleted his profile within a week and vowed to remain faithful to his wife of several years. They met in university and were crazy about each other.

They got married after a couple of years of dating. Soon, they had two kids, full-time careers, and extra-curricular activities that kept them busy and apart.

Life had basically become a routine and their sex life was on the decline. They barely had time or the energy for each other, Tony said.

“It seems like such a weak reason to seek out someone else but at the time it was a major factor in my life,” he said. “It affected everything I did and everything about me. My attitude, all of that stuff.”

A few months passed. One night, as Tony and his wife watched a syndicated sitcom, he saw an ad for the Ashley Madison Agency.

The Toronto-based Internet dating service caters to those looking to stray from their better halves, or are the least bit curious about what else is out there.

Within a day, Tony had created a public profile and private photo album, and used his credit card to buy more than $100 in credits that would allow him to interact with other members.

Even though he hadn’t made contact yet with anyone, Tony said he was already having an affair because he was doing something “wrong” behind his wife’s back.

At 1.45 million members (85% of them men), Ashley Madison is the largest website of its kind. Of those, 10,700 are in Manitoba. The website’s slogan is “When monogamy becomes monotony.”

Its member count is proof the Internet is now the No. 1 place for cheaters to hook up. Emotional affairs are common. Some people take them out of cyberspace and into the real world.

Tony did.

He met an older woman who shared his feelings. They chatted and flirted over the Net during the day when Tony was at his office and the woman was at home and her husband at work.

VIRTUAL MISTRESS

“I was looking for attention and sex. The Internet made it seem so easy to get,” he said.

Knowing his wife and kids would be out of town for the weekend, Tony took a major leap — he asked his virtual mistress if she’d meet him at a St. Vital hotel.

She lied to her husband, telling him she was going out for drinks with friends, Tony said.

Tony’s wife doesn’t know he had a one-night stand.

“I couldn’t tell her. Am I a coward? Maybe,” Tony said. “I know what I did was wrong. I’ll never do it again, but I shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

The Internet is popular grounds for finding a fellow cheating heart because it’s convenient and a person can maintain a level of anonymity, said Darren Morgenstern, operations director and founder of the Ashley Madison Agency.

People who are going to stray are going to find a way to do it, he said.

“To the people who need us, we provide a safe, reliable forum for them to come out and explore the full gamut of their feelings,” Morgenstern said. “They can decide if the grass is truly greener on the other side.”

The website has its critics.

“You’re always going to have a group of people who don’t agree with your business model and we don’t pretend to be for everybody,” Morgenstern said.

Infidelity author Ruth Houston said 30% of online affairs move out of the computer room and become sexual affairs in the bedroom. Or backseat of a car. Or hotel room. You get the idea.

“The Internet makes it infinitely easier to find a person to cheat with,” Houston said.

Traditionally, a person would go to a public place to seek out a willing partner at the risk of being slapped in the face or caught, she said.

That willing partner is sometimes unaware of the person’s attachment.

“Now, all a person has to do is sit in front of a computer to have an endless array of available partners at the click of a mouse,” Houston said. “The (spouse) can be sitting in the same room, totally unaware of what the person is doing.”

A secret emotional relationship that doesn’t leave the confines of cyberspace is emotional infidelity, no matter what the defence, Houston said.

“Emotional infidelity is the precursor to sexual infidelity,” she said.

“If it goes on long enough and it’s feasible for the two people to meet eventually they will.”

Here’s good news for all those cheating on their spouses. A landmark high court judgement in Britain, the first of its kind, has blocked kiss and tell stories. Justice Eady’s order restrained a cuckolded husband, called AB for public consumption, from revealing the name of a celebrity, a high-profile sports personality who allegedly had a roaring affair with AB’s wife. They met in hotels all over Europe and the United States to which the lady flew at the celebrity’s expense.

The ban is effective till February 2007 when the matter will be reviewed again. Until then the celebrity can only be identified as CC, which too are not his actual initials.

CC had pleaded that if his philandering was exposed it would upset his wife and children. His wife is said to have threatened suicide. CC himself too hinted at similar drastic steps It was these factors that held back newspaper editors so far from printing the details - which are well known - until the court order came.

What it means is that AB — who fought the case on legal aid — has not been able to exploit the situation for financial gain.

CC also said that media headlines about his extra marital relationship would damage his attempts to rebuild his marriage. His claim, which is disputed, was that at the time of the affair he did not know that the woman, who did not wear a wedding ring and made no mention of a current partner, was married.

The husband AB planned to sell the story to newspapers and post details of the affair on websites. His claimed he want to expose CC who was said to be a family man. AB also intended to file divorce proceedings and to name CC as co-respondent.

The judge was evidently disturbed by AB’s frank intention of cashing in on his wife’s affair. After a hearing on CC‘s plea for an injunction against AB talking publicly about the matter, the judge ruled that even a public figure engaged in an adulterous affair had a ‘right to privacy” under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The order gags the husband from spilling the beans about the affair. The judge added the gag was justified as the aggrieved husband’s motives were “spite, money-making or tittle tattle.”

The judge noted that CC had ‘conducted an adulterous relationship for some months with the defendant’s wife and now seeks the court’s assistance in preventing him from telling anybody about it”. He said he was faced with “the striking proposition that a spouse whose partner has committed adultery owes a duty of confidence to the third party adulterer to keep quiet about it”.

However, referring to the husband, the judge also noted, “His attitude is that he is entitled to his revenge on the claimant and, if possible, also to some financial gain; if his own wife, or the claimant’s wife or his children, suffer incidental fallout, then that is the claimant’s fault.”

In an e-mail to CC, the defendant had apparently threatened to tell “every person in the world” by publishing the details on the internet. He said that, in a tape-recorded, and apparently drunken telephone call, the defendant told him, ‘Listen mate, you’re going to be finished when this goes to court.”

Such behaviour of AB apparently persuaded the judge to give breathing time to CC.