From early 2006 to August 2008, former presidential candidate John Edwards was able to keep secret an intense affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter. Although the scandal eventually became public, Edwards used some key tricks and techniques to hide his affair, detailed in former aide Paul Young’s new book, The Politician.
With the rise in popularity of text messaging, it’s no surprise that increasingly more adulterers are being outed by their cell phones.
The most prominent recent example is Tiger Woods: After allegedly carrying on secret affairs with numerous women over several years, he was finally undone by text messages sent to Rachel Uchitel, the first mistress to be unveiled. A friend of hers told the National Enquirer about the affair, claiming she had seen incriminating text messages. The published rumors likely led to Tiger’s fight with his wife, Elin Nordegren, and subsequent car accident. For further embarrassment, another one of Tiger’s mistresses, Jaimee Grubbs, then gave illicit text messages incriminating Tiger to US Weekly, which then published them.
Ever since I became a private investigator, I’ve been debunking myths about private investigators propagated by popular TV shows and books. These are the top incorrect assumptions about private investigators that I hear:
Myth #1: I wear a trench coat and fedora.
While on a surveillance case, a private investigator should dress to blend in with the location. So if I’m tailing a Wall Street type during the work week, I may wear a suit. Or if I’m tailing someone on a weekend, I may wear jeans and a baseball cap. Although I do own a trench coat, it is has yet to be part of my “disguise”. Since I’ve never had a case to follow someone to a costume party, I can’t imagine a scenario where dressing like Dick Tracy would help me blend in with a crowd.
In an adultery investigation case, finding evidence like the email exchange between Cornell Business School employees “Lisa” and “John” would be like winning the jackpot. In case you haven’t already heard about the scandal, John accidentally copied the entire school on a very long and explicitly tawdry email exchange with his mistress Lisa. Both are married and, as is made abundantly clear from the email, engaging in a steamy affair. Read the full email transcript for the R-rated, torrid details.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know that Jon and Kate of TLC’s “Jon & Kate Plus 8” fame are getting a divorce, and it is has been less than amicable.
Under allegations of infidelity on both sides, what was already a contentious divorce proceeding turned uglier when TLC fired Jon from the show, renaming it “Kate Plus 8” last month. Jon retaliated by stopping production on the show, halting the family’s main income stream. Both Jon and Kate have accused each other of taking large sums of money from their joint bank account. Every day brings more bad behavior and headlines.
Has your fiancé been dodging questions about his financial worth and credit history? Did the bank recently foreclose on his home? Does he only pay for things in cash? Unfortunately, given our down economy, it could be that he is bankrupt. Bankruptcy court records are considered to be public information, so you can easily find out if he is bankrupt a few different ways:
Voice Case Information System (VCIS)
Each state’s bankruptcy court has a Voice Case Information System that you can call to gather information on bankruptcy cases for free. Simply call the phone number and follow the prompts to retrieve records. You can usually search by case number, name or social security number over the phone. Find out the VCIS phone number for your state.
Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER)
The PACER service provides online access to U.S. Appellate, District, and Bankruptcy court records and documents nationwide. You can register for free, but accessing bankruptcy records costs $0.08 per page.
Looking to verify someone’s vital records online? Check out these free websites to confirm vital records, including date of birth, place of birth, death date, and valid social security numbers:
BirthDatabase.com – Database of 120 million official government birth records with date of birth and place of birth by subject name.
Social Security Death Index (SSDI) – Database of birth dates, death dates and last known residence for millions of deceased individuals with United States social security numbers whose deaths were reported to the United States Social Security Administration. Birth years for the individuals listed range from 1875 to last year.
SSN Validator – Tool that instantly identifies valid and invalid social security numbers by verifying whether a number has been issued, the state in which the number was issued, and if the number was reported as belonging to a deceased person.
The recent tragic homocide of bikini model Jasmine Fiore by her reality TV star husband, Ryan Jenkins, is an example of how useless a criminal background check is if your private investigator or background check service doesn’t use good data sources.
In 2007, Jenkins pleaded guilty in Calgary, Canada to assault. He was sentenced to 15 months probation and ordered to undergo counseling for domestic violence and sex addiction and to stay away from the person involved. Subsequently, Jenkins starred in the VH1 reality show Megan Wants a Millionaire. The production company behind the show, 51 Minds, issued a statement saying that they used an outside company to run background checks on its contestants and were not aware of his record.
If you just started dating someone who claims to be divorced, you likely want to confirm that he or she isn’t still married. We probably all have heard of someone who found out that their wonderful new boyfriend or girlfriend was actually still married. Most people prefer to avoid a situation where they are accused of being a homewrecker.
If you just got engaged or started dating someone you met online, you probably want to confirm that your partner isn’t married or hiding a prior marriage. Or maybe you’re just looking to research your family history and want to find out who your long lost second cousin married. Many companies charge for this information, but you can sometimes access it for free or a small fee using the below methods:
RootsWeb – Free database of records created by the members of an online genealogy community, containing more than 600,000 marriage records. To search for a record, you must input the last name of one of the involved parties; first name, state and year of marriage are optional fields.
