Show Topic
This show aired on May 21, 2017. It was hosted by David Enevoldsen. Brent LaJeunesse appeared as a guest on the show. Brent talked about his work as a private investigator, infidelity, common indicators of cheating, what techniques are used to investigate claims of cheating, the possibility of someone not cheating even when someone suspects cheating, recordings of other parties, the application of cheating to a divorce or custody matter, and other ways to utilize a private investigator in a family court case.
Guest Information
Brent works for Investigative Business Solutions, and can be reached at 480-254-4661 or through www.azprivatei.com.
Headlines
Headlines on this show looked at former congressmen, Anthony Weiner’s wife filing for divorce, the issuance of the Supreme Court of the United States Opinion in Howell v. Howell, Piolo Pascual’s public position on prenuptial agreements, and the filing of a suit related to a prenup and the disposition of Alan Thicke’s estate.
Did You Know
This show’s Did You Know looked at an article from the Journal of Research in Personality entitled the Infidelity in the First Year of Marriage and various trends and statistics it compiled on the subject of infidelity.
Transcript
Announcer: Family Law Report is hosted by Family Law Guys, an Arizona family law firm. Family Law Report is dedicated to confronting difficult issues related to marriage, divorce and children. This can range everywhere from addressing the legalities and controversies of topics like gay marriage, to current problems with the divorce system, to simply providing tips to those getting married or going through a divorce or custody fight. Tune in every Sunday to Family Law Report at noon here on KFNX. If you want to know more, or to schedule an appointment with David or another one of the Family Law Guys attorneys, call 480-565-8680. That’s 480-565-8680.
Announcer: The discussions and information provided in Family Law Report are intended to be general in nature and are not directed for any individual circumstances. No attorney-client relationship is being formed through this program. If you need legal advice, your particular circumstances can vary from what is presented here, and you should seek the advice of an attorney licensed to practice in your state.
Welcome to the Family Law Report, the show that explores issues related to marriage, divorce, and children, hosted by David Enevoldsen, a practicing family law attorney in Arizona. Now, here’s your host.
David E.: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Family Law Report. I am your host, David Enevoldsen, here with you every Sunday at noon on Independent Talk, 1100 KFNX. Here on Family Law Report, we talk about all the current topics of family law, and that can range from what’s going on in the political arena related to family law all the way down to just working through the basic nuts and bolts of a divorce or custody matter. I am a practicing attorney. I work in the area of family law, and when I say family law, I mean basically anything related to marriage, divorce, fights over custody of children, relationship issues, grandparents’ rights, child support, anything in that realm.
I am a partner at a law firm here in Arizona called Family Law Guys. We focus primarily on helping divorcing parents avoid getting screwed out of time with their children. We have offices here in the Phoenix area, and while we don’t practice outside of Arizona, if you want to call us and schedule an appointment to talk about your family law case, you can do so by calling 480-565-8680, or you can check us out on our website at www.familylawguys.com. On today’s show, we’re gonna be talking about cheating and how to use a private investigator in your family law matter. Today I’m joined by a guest, Brent LaJeunesse. Brent, are you there?
Brent L.: Yes I am, David. Good afternoon.
David E.: Good afternoon. Thanks for joining me. Brent works for Investigative Business Solutions. We’re gonna talk to him about all of his experience as a private investigator, things related to cheating, and then other things you can do like asset searches, other stuff that you can use a private investigator for. Before we get into that, I’m gonna hit our current headlines, what’s been going on in the week in the family law universe.
First up, there’s one Anthony Weiner, who is a former Democratic Congressman. There’s been a lot of press about him, so I’m sure many of you have heard of him. In case you haven’t heard, there was previously a bunch of controversy surrounding his texting a 15-year-old girl with a bunch of sexually explicit stuff, and he’s been charged criminally. Well, this week, he entered into a plea agreement in which he was gonna get 21 to 27 months, and he has to register as a sex offender under the plea agreement.
Well, the only note on this that I’m going to stick on there, because again, I know this has been all over the press, is that he’s married to Huma Abedin, and right after he got sentenced this week, within hours of his court appearance for the … Or not sentenced, excuse me. Entering his plea agreement. Within hours of that hearing, Huma then went out and filed for divorce. So, now the Congressman … And this is not at all an unusual thing. We’ve been seeing a lot of this recently within the press. Every time there’s some scandal related to a husband who has done something involving running off with a minor girl, we keep seeing this pattern of wife immediately, not surprisingly, goes out and files for divorce. That’s all I’m gonna hit on Mr. Weiner’s case.
Also this week, there was a United States Supreme Court opinion that was issued arising out of a case in the family law universe here in Arizona. Case was called Howell v. Howell, and this case, like I said, started here in Arizona. It dealt with a man who got divorced, and as part of the divorce, he had to divide up his Air Force retirement pay. Now, he was married to Sandra Howell, and Sandra was supposed to get 50% of the retirement pay per the divorce order. Now, some of this was prospective, because Mr. Howell hadn’t received some of that future Air Force retirement pay yet. So, she started off getting it, but then John was later found by the Department of Veterans Affairs to be partially disabled, and as a result of that … As a result of an injury that was connected to his service. So, he was able to get disability pay. Now, in order to get disability pay, he had to get a smaller amount of retirement benefits, which meant that now Sandra was gonna be getting less of a cut of her share of the Air Force retirement pay.
She went back to court, challenges him on that. The Arizona courts ended up saying that she was entitled to essentially be indemnified for the amount that she should have otherwise been receiving, and wasn’t receiving. That ended up going all the way up the chain to the Supreme Court of the United States. Well, they issued their opinion this week in which they said Arizona can’t do that. There’s an already-existing rule that says that the states can’t treat military retirement pay, even if it’s waived, as community property. So, Sandra ended up having to take the lesser amount here. I guess the idea is that you could go in and offset it by way of something else, like spousal maintenance, or deal with it in a different way, but you can’t try to circumvent this retirement pay issue. May be a little academic, but I’m sure the family law attorneys out there might find this one interesting.
In other news, there’s a fellow named Piolo Pascual who is a Filipino film and television actor. He’s a musician, model, producer. He’s pretty active, and he’s known for being one of the industry’s most eligible bachelors, apparently. Well, he came out and made some comments that related to prenups. Specifically, he said that he found prenups were offensive, and here’s the quote that he issued, that “That is offensive to both parties. When you talk about love and settling down, you don’t discuss about the eventuality of breaking up or divorce. On a lighter note, if my girl would insist on signing one, then,” and I’m gonna butcher this, because it’s in a foreign language here, “[Filipino 00:08:01],” which translates as I understand it to, “I got lucky.”
If you’ve heard my recent show on prenups, you’ll know that I’m gonna take some issue with this particular statement, because it doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever. On the one hand, he’s saying that the prenups are offensive, and on the other hand he’s saying, but it would be great if he had a girl that wanted one. I don’t understand that. Because he’s saying it’s offensive to both parties, but if his girl would get one, he’s not offended. He actually wants that. Now, as I’ve said previously, I have a problem with the idea that … The traditional notion around prenups is that you’re dooming the marriage before it’s begun, or it’s super-offensive because you’re talking about the end of the marriage, that kind of thinking.
There’s a few things that I immediately react to with that. One is, it’s a lot like insurance in that you don’t get car insurance because you’re planning on running out and crashing your car. You don’t get health insurance because you intend to go destroy your arm in a car accident or something. It’s just something you do to plan out. Another, and more to my point here, is that it’s not just divorce planning. In some ways, it’s marriage planning.
For example, the prenup can protect you by way of what’s going on in the marriage. One of the very common things that prenups will do is compartmentalize out your assets such that only one or the other of you has interest in any given asset. Now, what that means is that if you have a creditor come along during the marriage, and the creditor files suit against one of the spouses, that creditor typically, in Arizona, which is a community property state, will name both spouses in the lawsuit, meaning that everybody’s property is subject to attachment from a judgment. You can circumvent that process by using a prenup, which compartmentalizes out your assets, makes them all separate, and now all of a sudden you’ve insulated, in essence, your spouse from an attack by a creditor without even talking about divorce.
Another major thing that I take issue with here is that, in my experience, when you sit down and go through the process of getting a prenup, it really forces you to talk about finances. Finances are one of the major stressors that I see all the time going through the divorce process. Cheating is a big one, which we’re gonna be talking about a lot today, but also financial issues. I constantly hear people come in to me saying that they’re gonna get a divorce, and one of the big problems is he or she just goes out and spends like crazy and acts like we have money that’s water, or there’s not enough money on the table. There’s some sort of problem related to finances.
When you go through the process of getting a prenup, one of the things that I’ve experienced is people suddenly are forced to talk about all of this financial stuff that they just were kind of ignoring, and they were gonna jump in and get married, merge their lives together, merge their financial universes together, and hadn’t really … They may have thought about it in a global way, but they didn’t really think about it in a very detailed way as to how they’re going to deal with everything. So, forcing people to sit down, it’s like a counseling in a way, and figuring out exactly what’s gonna happen, exactly how everybody’s finances are gonna go, helps, in my mind, to work through some of these potential future issues that could otherwise lead up to a divorce.
So, Piolo, I’m sorry. I’m taking issue with your statement here that you find it offensive, but then simultaneously, you would think you’re lucky if you had a girl that insisted on signing one. That strikes me more as somebody who’s just kind of saying what he thinks girls want to hear or something. I’m not really sure what’s going on there. But conceptually, either way it doesn’t make sense, and I’m gonna stand by my “prenups make sense” position.
One more quick thing. Alan Thicke has hit the news. If you don’t recall, he’s the actor from “Growing Pains.” He was the father in that show. He passed away in December of 2016, last year, and when he did, there was a prenup that … He was married, and he had a prenup that he’d signed before marriage. Well, apparently, Robin and Brennan Thicke, his eldest sons, have filed suit in Los Angeles to resolve a dispute over Alan’s estate, because his widow Tanya is now claiming that the prenup is invalid, because presumably, she wants more of his estate. Here again, we’ve got some of these interesting prenup issues popping up in the news. Tanya’s looking for more, and we’ll see how that plays out.
All right. We’re gonna take a quick break. I am Attorney David Enevoldsen. I’m joined by my guest Brent LaJeunesse, and when we return, we’re gonna do our “did you know,” and then we’re gonna talk about cheating and private investigators in family law matter. If you want to call in and ask any questions, you can do so at 602-277-KFNX. You’re tuned into Family Law Report on Independent Talk, 1100 KFMX.
David E.: Welcome back to Family Law Report. I’m David Enevoldsen, attorney with Family Law Guys, an Arizona law firm, here with you every Sunday at noon on Independent Talk, 1100 KFNX. I’m joined today by my guest, Brent LaJeunesse from Investigative Business Solutions. He’s a private investigator. If you want to reach out and schedule an appointment with my firm, Family Law Guys, you can do so at 480-565-8680, or you can check us out on our website at www.famiylawguys.com. If you are listening and you want to call in and ask any questions or share thoughts, you can do so at 602-277-KFNX. Brent, if somebody wants to reach out and contact you or your firm, how would they do that?
Brent L.: They can certainly reach us at 480-254-4661, and on our website as well, at azprivatei.com.
David E.: And is that “private,” the letter “I”?
Brent L.: Yes, it is.
David E.: Okay. Just to make sure that’s clear.
Brent L.: Yeah, thank you.
David E.: All right. We’re gonna hit our “did you know,” and then we’re gonna talk to Brent about everything that Brent does. For the “did you know” today, I thought I’d tie it in a little bit to our topic of the day. I looked back at an article from … It’s actually a 1997 article entitled, “Susceptibility to Infidelity in the First Year of Marriage” in the Journal of Research in Personality. In that article, they compiled quite a few different studies related to infidelity as part of their research on what was going on in the first year of marriage and infidelity. So, I thought I would regurgitate to you guys some of the stuff that they found in this article.
First off, it has an estimate of cheating that occurs with … They range it from somewhere between 30 and 60% of men who are married are unfaithful. It also says that between 20 and 50% of women are unfaithful in relationships. Now, in their research, they discovered that men are more likely to have affairs than women. For the men that do have affairs, they typically have a greater number of sexual partners than their female counterparts who would be having affairs. The men who were having affairs were more likely to do so without feeling emotionally involved, which so far, this doesn’t sound very surprising. This is all kind of the stereotype that I have in my head.
Women’s infidelity tends to lead to divorce more than a man’s infidelity does. Apparently, women, according to their research, were more likely to forgive a cheating event, whereas a man was less likely to forgive that. Men are more likely than women to feel like extramarital affairs are justified, and also have less guilt than a woman would. Interestingly, the article did not find any significant correlation between infidelity and income or socioeconomic status. So, all of these rules seem to apply regardless of how much you were making or what your general status was.
Level of education, however, did have some correlation. While it wasn’t correlated with men, with women, there was this correlation. They noticed that there was a strange bell curve in that higher levels of education were linked with higher levels of affairs in women, while lower levels of education were linked with lower levels of affairs. Sorry. That was not the bell curve. That was just the straight curve up on that. The next one is the bell curve. So, with level of education in women, they were noticing that just basically, the higher level of education you had, the more likely you were to have an affair and vice-versa.
Religiosity. This is where the bell curve was. They noticed that the highest and lowest levels of religiosity were more likely to have affairs. So, if you were super-religious, you were more likely to have an affair, or if you were super-not-religious, you were more likely to have an affair. But if you were in the middle, just kind of moderately religious, you were less likely to have an affair. I thought all of this data was very interesting, and tied into the cheating theme that we’ve got here. Most of it not necessarily surprising. The education thing kind of caught me off guard, but I want to contrast … That’s our “did you know” for today. I’d like to contrast that with some of the stuff that we’re gonna be talking with Brent about.
Brent, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and your company?
Brent L.: All right, then. Well, thank you. Yes, we’ve been in business since 2000. We’re a family business. My wife and I started the private detective agency together. I was a police officer before that, and my wife has a background in investigating insurance fraud claims. So, it was a sort of a natural fit for us to start our own detective agency. We’ve been doing that now for some time, and we’ve never looked back.
David E.: Both of you are PIs?
Brent L.: Yes we are. We’re both licensed PIs in Arizona and California as well. Yeah. In a nutshell.
David E.: Tell me a little bit about your background as an officer.
Brent L.: Well, I did the usual law enforcement stuff, but my later career as a detective mostly concentrated on surveillance and keeping tabs on bad guys and running operations like that, which was a natural fit for what we do a lot of in a private detective agency. A lot of that is following people and finding covert information, whether it’s following someone that’s faking a injury for an insurance company, or whether it’s watching someone’s spouse, because they have some suspicions that they’re being unfaithful to them and cheating, or maybe they’re not taking care of the children like they’re supposed to be, and that sort of thing. The private industry does get a lot of that covert work, and that was a natural fit for us.
David E.: It does like that would be a natural match [crosstalk 00:22:07]. What did you say your wife was doing before? You said she was doing insurance investigations?
Brent L.: Insurance fraud investigations as well, and a lot of that … The same thing, revolved around surveillance of subjects.
David E.: There again, a pretty natural fit to what you’ve been doing. You said-
Brent L.: Yeah, absolutely.
David E.: … It’s been since 2000?
Brent L.: 2000, yeah.
David E.: That was when you formed up your team, correct? So, you’ve been at this for-
Brent L.: Exactly.
David E.: … For quite a while.
Brent L.: Yeah, it went fast.
David E.: Yeah, for sure. Do you find it difficult to work with the wife, or does that make things easier, or …?
Brent L.: No. We’re a pretty good team, I’ve got to say. We get asked that a lot, but we haven’t had any problems working as a husband and wife team. We get along good, and I’ve got some qualities, I think, that offset hers, and vice-versa. So, it seems to work out well. Then, as far as running a surveillance operation, having two people, a man and a woman, blend in to almost any scenario without being noticed, whereas one, say, a lone man in a certain circumstance might look strange. We don’t seem to have those problems. We just look like an unassuming couple that’s hanging around in the background, and no one really takes that much note of us.
David E.: Now, when you go out and do … I guess there’s probably a whole range of different things you do, but do you frequently go in as a couple, pretending to be a couple somewhere? Well, you are a couple, but-
Brent L.: Yes.
David E.: You present as a couple while you’re doing just to get into certain places? Is that-
Brent L.: We really do, and that’s one of our strong suits that we use to differentiate ourselves from other PI companies in the Valley, that we do work in a team of two and we do work as a couple. That does get us in some places. We’re less noticed, I think, and we fit in. If she needs to go into a place as someone … A woman goes into a yoga club, for example, or something, and she can go ahead and do that and I can hang back, or-
David E.: Because you would probably look a little out of place there, right?
Brent L.: Exactly. If I was by myself, then what would happen?
David E.: Right. Maybe just look like the creepy guy trying to get in there.
Brent L.: Right. And you might certainly get noticed by someone. Like, “What is that guy doing?” In the back of the room-
David E.: Well, and since you legitimately are a couple, I guess in those couple situations, it would be much easier to be comfortable there, as opposed to just pretending you are with someone else.
Brent L.: That’s exactly right. We’re not pretending. We are a couple, and we’re blending in. We’ve been doing that, the work aspect of that, for a long time. So, we sort of can read each other’s minds in terms of where one of us should go in the room, or how we should space in terms of getting some covert video. Say I have a camera hidden on me that’s in a button, a shirt button, or something, and she’ll stand off to my side and make like we’re talking, and she knows that I’m recording what we need to record. We just work really well together that way.
David E.: Can you tell me a little bit about that? You said sometimes you have, like, a camera in your button. What kinds of technology do you use in this work?
Brent L.: Yeah, absolutely. We have a lot of different cameras. But essentially like that, they’re hidden in different … She might carry something in a purse or something in a cell phone, and we have ones that are sewn into the jacket or into your shirt. Just depending on the environment. You keep all this stuff with you in sort of a “go bag,” and depending on where you’re … Is it gym gear that you’ve got to throw on to get some video, or do I need to put on a dinner jacket and go into a restaurant? It just depends. But they’re all equipped in the same basic way, and they operate on Bluetooth. They’re sending the recording back to your device, where it may be … Maybe it’s in the surveillance van, or maybe you have a small device in your pocket, whatever it might be. We have different set-ups.
David E.: Interesting.
Brent L.: Yeah.
David E.: Okay. I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Brent L.: Yeah. Then, of course, all that, we clean that video up and we edit out the stuff that doesn’t look that great, and we send that to our clients in a email link. It works seamlessly, and they can see what we saw.
David E.: Okay, cool. We’re gonna take a quick break. I am Attorney David Enevoldsen. I’m joined by my guest, Brent LaJeunesse. When we come back, we’re gonna talk more with him about private investigations in family matters and cheating, and everything related to what he does. If you want to call in and ask any questions, you can do so at 602-277-KFNX. You’re tuned into Family Law Report on Independent Talk, 1100 KFNX.
Speaker 4: Family Law Report is hosted by Family Law Guys, an Arizona family law firm. Family Law Report is dedicated to confronting difficult issues related to marriage, divorce and children. This can range everywhere from addressing the legalities and controversies of topics like gay marriage, to current problems with the divorce system, to simply providing tips to those getting married or going through a divorce or custody fight. Tune in every Sunday to Family Law Report at noon here on KFNX. If you want to know more, or to schedule an appointment with David or another one of the Family Law Guys attorneys, call 480-565-8680. That’s 480-565-8680.
David E.: Welcome back to Family Law Report. I’m David Enevoldsen, your host. I am an attorney with Family Law Guys, an Arizona law firm, here with you every Sunday at noon on Independent Talk, 1100 KFNX. I’m joined today by my guest, Brent LaJeunesse, who works for Investigative Business Solutions. If you want to reach out and schedule an appointment with my firm, Family Law Guys, you can do so at 480-565-8680, or you can check us out on our website at www.famiylawguys.com. If you are listening and you want to call in and ask any questions or share thoughts, you can do so by calling 602-277-KFNX. Brent, just one more time, we’ll give you another plug. If anybody wants to reach out to you or your company, how would they contact you?
Brent L.: Yeah, they can contact me directly at 480-254-4661, and we’re on the website at azprivatei.com.
David E.: Awesome. All right. We’ve been talking to Brent about private investigation. His work, what he does, that sort of thing. We talked a little bit about the background of your company, and you talked a little bit about the tech. I just want to clean up that tech thought, just for my own curiosity. You said you have a lot of different things you use in terms of getting video. Like, there could be cameras in various things. Are there other devices you use outside of just video recording devices?
Brent L.: No. We like to stick with just video. There can be legalities with capturing some audios in this state, so we like to stick with video, take the sound out. Also, audio is a sort of unrealistic … Something to pick up in terms of a public place, because there’s gonna be so much ambient and background noise, and-
David E.: Sure.
Brent L.: … And in restaurants, the dishes and people talking, that you really can’t record audio. So, what you’re looking for is a video, and then from a video, we do make good glossy still pictures that … We can zoom in and give you an idea of … If we’re talking about a cheating scenario, the slightest thing will mean something to a client. Maybe it’s the way that someone held someone else’s hand, or the way they patted them on the shoulder or the arm. It can, even at the time, maybe not seem significant to you as an outsider, but if that’s your spouse that’s being certainly touched in a different sort of way-
David E.: Sure.
Brent L.: … You’ll pick up on it. That’s why the images are very powerful and important.
David E.: That makes sense. Now, you mentioned … This is actually something I wanted to touch on additionally. You mentioned there were some legalities related to the audio, or potential legalities. Are you getting into … By that do you mean things like wiretap issues or issues related to-
Brent L.: Yeah. And things that you might be overheard. Two parties versus a one-party state consent to an audio recording. Exactly.
David E.: Yeah. Just as a side note, and this kind of runs into something that I run into, is audio recordings introduced into family court cases. Generally speaking, if you’re not a party to the conversation, you are not allowed to record somebody else’s conversation.
Brent L.: Right.
David E.: That’s the legality part you run into. If you are a party to the conversation, legally you can record without necessarily having to notice the other party. However, I have recently been running into some resistance in introducing that as exhibits in trials. Historically, what I have done is always had people just record conversations if they think there’s gonna be something crazy going on between themselves and the other party. It’s usually another parent, if you’re in a family court case. That kind of illuminates, in my mind, any proof … Or any question about what it is that happened in any given situation, because typically, you walk into the courtroom, and suddenly everybody’s just saying the opposite. “He said X, Y, Z,” “No, I didn’t. She did A, B, C.” And you really have no proof of anything other than just what people are saying, which they’re just saying the opposite.
So, in the past, I have always just introduced recordings that one of the parties has recorded, because there nothing illegal if you’re a party to the conversation in Arizona. Please take note that this is not necessarily the case in other states. There are some states where it is illegal to make recordings, even if you are a party to the conversation, if you have not notified the other party, and in some instances that can be criminal. But there’s nothing illegal about it. There are ethical implications to attorneys, in some instances, but there’s nothing illegal.
Now, that said, I have had a couple of occasions now, and it seems there’s a somewhat growing trend with some judges, at least in the Maricopa County court system, who are kicking back at that idea and saying if you’re a parent, that’s not necessarily in the best interests of the child to surreptitiously record conversations between yourself and the other parent, and they have as a result sanctioned by not allowing those recordings in.
Brent L.: Right.
David E.: As a technical matter, it’s legal. It may not be ethical if you’re an attorney. So, if you’re an attorney, you want to be very careful with that. If you’re not in Arizona, it might be illegal, depending on what state you’re in, but be aware that if you’re doing down that road … And this is another reason not to end up in a trial and try to settle, which is a whole different discussion we’ve had … It may be kicked back as an exhibit. Or might not be. So, it’s a roll of the dice.
Brent L.: Right. Let’s bear in mind too, when I’m speaking about even video surveillance and photographs, that I’m taking for granted that the people that are listening are assuming I’m talking about being in a public place.
David E.: Sure, sure.
Brent L.: So, you hire me to follow someone. They’re going into a restaurant or a bar or a park, or whatever it is. It’s a public place, so we’re able to record that. I do get calls where someone will say, “Well, my significant other is going to be staying in this hotel room on business, and I would like you to go in there and wire that for sound.” Obviously, we cannot do something like that, wire you for sound or video.
David E.: Right.
Brent L.: No one in that room is giving consent to that, and that’s just simply not going to happen.
David E.: Well, that would be criminal on your part, right?
Brent L.: Absolutely. Absolutely.
David E.: Yeah.
Brent L.: A lot of people … And it’s not … They just don’t understand, so you do need to make that clear.
David E.: Well, let’s talk about the cheating thing. Let’s get into more detail about that. We kind of talked about the generalities of what you do. Now, your firm does a fair amount of cheating-type cases. Is that a fair statement?
Brent L.: Yeah. That’s probably the majority of what we do. It’s unfortunate that it’s needed, but it is really … It’s something that’s important to people. We have a thing on our website, and we really talk about red flags. I like to get that through to people, that you’ve got to watch your spouse for certain signs. Is she or he very private on their cell phones? Do they lock it, or do you know the code to your spouse’s cell phone to unlock it? Or is that something they keep quiet? Do they seem more disconnected than usual? Is there changes in sexual habits? Are they disappearing a lot? Are they late from work? Are they going early? Are they traveling more than usual? Do their friends act unusual or strange around you? Things like this. When you notice things like this, there might be something going on.
David E.: Okay.
Brent L.: That might be time to pay attention.
David E.: You found that these are … Everything you just articulated can be a common indicator that somebody is indeed cheating. Is that …?
Brent L.: Absolutely. People will call us, and sometimes they’re very in tune with what’s going on with their partner. I will say that your partner could have all of these red flags, and it still will not necessarily mean that there’s a cheating scenario going on. Sometimes-
David E.: Well, that actually feeds into my next question here. Do you run into false positives, where … Because I was looking at the internet. I’ve heard things on the radio a lot, and I consistently have heard this phrase or read this phrase that, “If you think somebody’s cheating, they probably are. Trust your gut,” kind of thing. Do you find that in your experience to be true?
Brent L.: No, I actually don’t. I think that we give people peace of mind more than they actually think they’re going to get. When they come to us, they’re relatively sure, because of this checklist of things, that their partner is probably cheating on them, and they just need to know so they can move on. Sometimes we go out there and we find that there is an issue, there will be something causing these changes, but it might be something physical, it might be something of a depression, it might be a problem in the workplace that they’re having.
A lot of times, we’ve seen we leave clients that are, “Well, thank goodness it’s not me or the relationship. I didn’t realize that they were having such a difficult time with their new job,” or, “I didn’t know that they weren’t feeling well,” or whatever it might be. Then it’s good, because then they can work together, and maybe they just haven’t had that honest conversation and opened up to one another. They never have to know you hired a private investigator. They’ll just know that now they figured out that there’s something amiss, and they can figure out a gameplan to deal with it.
David E.: Let me parrot this back and make sure I’m understanding correctly. You’re saying that somebody could have run through this checklist of things that you were talking about earlier, like they’re super-secretive about their phone, or you start noticing some significant distance, or any of these things-
Brent L.: They’re not talking to you like they used to. Yeah.
David E.: They’re not sleeping with you the same way that they used to. So, people are looking-
Brent L.: Right.
David E.: … At this and going, “Oh, this person’s for sure cheating,” and then-
Brent L.: Right. With little to no-
David E.: They hire you, and you discover, in essence, that that’s not … Can you give examples of how you might discover that that’s not the case. Without necessarily disclosing particular cases.
Brent L.: Yeah, exactly. It’s hard to discuss particulars-
David E.: Maybe speak in a general sense.
Brent L.: … But in generalities, we did follow someone lately that … You could tell they were suffering from a sort of an eating disorder, if you will. It was changing their whole dynamic about how they worked and when they came home from work, and when they would sneak off to buy food and to eat, rather than … The assumption being that they were sneaking off to have an affair or something. It was interesting that then the party that hired us could relate to that, and remembered that this had been an issue years and years ago, and that they hadn’t even thought of it. They thought it was something more sinister in terms of a relationship problem.
David E.: Interesting. All right. We’re gonna take another quick break. I’m Attorney David Enevoldsen, joined by my guest, Brent LaJeunesse. When we return, we’re gonna talk more to him about cheating and private investigation in family law matters. If you want to call in and ask any questions, you can do so at 602-27-KFNX. You’re tuned into Family Law Report on Independent Talk, 1100 KFNX.
Speaker 4: Family Law Report is hosted by Family Law Guys, an Arizona family law firm. Family Law Report is dedicated to confronting difficult issues related to marriage, divorce and children. This can range everywhere from addressing the legalities and controversies of topics like gay marriage, to current problems with the divorce system, to simply providing tips to those getting married or going through a divorce or custody fight. Tune in every Sunday to Family Law Report at noon here on KFNX. If you want to know more, or to schedule an appointment with David or another one of the Family Law Guys attorneys, call 480-565-8680. That’s 480-565-8680.
David E.: Welcome back to Family Law Report. I’m David Enevoldsen, your host, an attorney with Family Law Guys, an Arizona law firm, here with you every Sunday at noon on Independent Talk, 1100 KFNX. Joined today by my guest, Brent LaJeunesse from Investigative Business Solutions. If you want to reach out and schedule an appointment with my firm, Family Law Guys, you can do so by calling 480-565-8680, or you can check us out on our website at www.familylawguys.com. If you are listening and you want to call in and ask any questions or share thoughts, you can do so by calling 602-277-KFNX. Brent, one more time, if anybody wants to get ahold of you or your company, how do they reach you?
Brent L.: Yeah, please feel free to give me a call at 480-254-4661, or online at azprivatei.com. That’s “Private” and the letter “I” dot com. We have a lot of information on there that they can peruse regarding these red flags and signs of infidelity and so forth as well.
David E.: Awesome. Thank you. When we went to break last, we were talking a little bit about … There could be a lot of false positives. If you had to quantify that in terms of … When I say “false positives,” I mean that somebody thinks there’s cheating going on, but it turns out that there’s not. You heard my “did you know” earlier where I was … They had kind of a wide range. I think they said something like 30 to … Let me pull it up again. It was … They were estimating 30 to 60%, which seems like a very broad range of men are unfaithful, and 20 to 50% of women are unfaithful. Does that ring true to you in your experience? Do you think it’s … If you had to quantify it, could you?
Brent L.: Yeah, I’d say we’re running about half the time. Probably 50% of the time if we’re gonna go out there, we’re gonna find that it is happening. That’s because people are pretty in tune with their partners. But not as in tune as you would think, because I would think that it would be almost 100%. But, like I said, we do find other … There are other issues, and there are other things causing people these stress. So, it can happen. And it can be a relief for people, too, to hire us just to make sure.
David E.: Well, and it seems like that could … If you already have somebody that’s predisposed to some level of insecurity, and they’re starting to see some of these indicators that pop up related to something else, like your example earlier, if somebody’s just getting depressed and they’re slipping into some weird eating habit that they’re ashamed of, and they run off and start consuming things secretively. Now the other spouse or significant other-
Brent L.: Exactly.
David E.: … Thinks they’re cheating, all of a sudden it spins out of control.
Brent L.: Yeah.
David E.: One side note that I wanted to make here, and if I can inject my lawyer hat into this again, is that while the cheating thing is clearly a huge emotional … Has a huge emotional impact on the case, or any case, in terms of divorce, it’s a pretty common catalyst for the divorce. If somebody finds out that somebody else is cheating, obviously that can turn into breakups if you’re not married, it’s doesn’t necessarily have a whole lot to do with the legality of the case, in Arizona at least.
Brent L.: That’s a good point, yeah. It is a no-fault state.
David E.: Correct.
Brent L.: We’d make that corrected. If you find that someone is cheating, it’s not going to affect … Help things play out, exactly.
David E.: I generally agree with that. With child issues, you have a right to see your kid regardless of whether you were cheating on somebody or not. With property division, with one exception I can think of, we’re a community property state and you can just divide it equally. You don’t have to have a reason to divorce someone. As Brent said, we’re a no-fault state, meaning you can just say, “I don’t like my spouse anymore” and you can get divorced.
Brent L.: Right.
David E.: The one exception I can think of is, there’s a system called “marital waste,” an idea in the community property division, which basically says if you take community assets and you just kind of throw them out the window, then you can theoretically recoup those. It’s a little subjective, and up to the judge. The example I think of is if I’m married and I run to Vegas with my mistress, and I spend 10 grand on a trip and buying my mistress jewelry and that sort of thing, I’ve taken community funds and dumped them into this thing that’s clearly not benefiting the community.
Brent L.: That’s exactly … That can be a very big problem. Exactly.
David E.: Presumably, that’s something you could look into as well. Is that correct?
Brent L.: Yeah, that’s exactly right. When it comes down to assets and things like that. Also, when you started off the show, you touched a little bit on prenuptial and prenup agreements. We are seeing the cheating factor written into prenups more and more as well.
David E.: Right. Good point. Thank you.
Brent L.: So, that’s something … Yeah.
David E.: That’s absolutely right. So, it could conceivably, if you’re in a prenup situation, actually impact the property rights. But short of something in a prenup that says if somebody’s unfaithful, the property distribution changes, then in a vacuum, just using the default Arizona rules, that’s not necessarily gonna have a whole lot of play. One other quick note on the side is that, did you know that it’s technically a criminal offense in Arizona to commit adultery? It’s on the books. Now, I’ve never heard of anyone actually enforcing it, but there is a statute. It’s ARS 13-1408, which classifies it as a Class 3 misdemeanor, and it’s still on the books. Now, there again-
Brent L.: Wow.
David E.: … I’ve never heard of a prosecutor actually taking one of these on, but it’s still out there. It’s on the books. So, technically-
Brent L.: That is a trip.
David E.: … It’s a criminal offense.
Brent L.: [crosstalk 00:50:18]-
David E.: Yeah. Now, you said … We talked a little bit about some of the indicators, and sometimes that can be something that isn’t necessarily coming to fruition. Can you tell me a little bit about how it’s actually done? Are there any trends you notice in terms of people that are being unfaithful, in terms of how they’re carrying out their affairs or things you notice in that respect?
Brent L.: Well, I do notice we get a disproportionate amount of cheating from a man and a woman when it’s tied into business trips and traveling. I don’t know why that is. I don’t know if it’s that people have the opportunity because they’re out of town and they’re with people that they work with, and they’re developing closer relationships like that. I don’t know. But we do see a disproportionate amount of that, where someone comes to town on a business conference, whether they’re a man or a woman, and the spouse has some concerns that there might be cheating, that there oftentimes is. More so than the scenario where your husband works 9:00 to 5:00, and he’s now getting home at 6:30 instead of quarter to six. A lot of times, that could be explained in some other fashion. But traveling for work-
David E.: Well, it seems like an extra half an hour here and there would be a little difficult to carry on an affair.
Brent L.: Exactly, exactly.
David E.: Maybe that would … And correct me if I’m wrong, would that be a little different if somebody was showing up at 9:00 instead of 6:00, and maybe there’s a little-
Brent L.: That’s exactly right.
David E.: Do you find that the business relationships tend to be more common in the cheating universe? That is to say, work, co-workers or something like that?
Brent L.: Yes, it seems to me that that is the case. I found it interesting when you had that statistic, that the higher or more educated a woman was, the more likely she was. I immediately, my brain wondered if that’s maybe because she has a job where she is more high-powered and travels a lot. Does that have something to do with that?
David E.: Wow, interesting point.
Brent L.: Is that why that spike in that statistic is occurring? I don’t know.
David E.: That ties into what you’ve experienced, in terms of business trips.
Brent L.: Yeah.
David E.: You have people going … Yeah, that’s an interesting point. Now, do you find that there are other situations where people acquire affairs? For example, there was all the controversy about Ashley Madison’s site that people could go to to find cheating. Do you find that some of it arises from that kind of place, or Craigslist, or something like that?
Brent L.: Yeah, that’s sort of a … Then again, that is a man-oriented cheating situation, but with Ashley Madison, we did go through a spike in business where women were calling us and we were following so many people around because of that. A lot of people were suspicious that their husbands might have registered, or they saw their emails or their name on some sort of a registration list.
David E.: Interesting.
Brent L.: It was quite busy. It was a lot more than I would have thought, but-
David E.: Well, they had that whole thing about someone had disclosed their whole registration list, I remember.
Brent L.: Exactly. Yeah.
David E.: Well, let’s shift topics real quick, because we’re almost out of time on the show here. I want to touch base really quickly on anything else you do. Obviously, the cheating part, finding affairs, that’s a big part of what you’re doing. Is there other stuff you do in support of, like, cases for family court?
Brent L.: Yeah, for sure. We can be proactive in what we do as well. Instead of talking about people that are in a relationship and thinking something might be going south, let’s talk about people that are in new relationships. You’ve met someone on some sort of online dating profile or maybe through some non-traditional means, or maybe even a traditional means of meeting someone. It certainly would not hurt to secure your future by doing a simple background check on them. That’s something we could do. If they’ve been involved in [crosstalk 00:54:12] money schemes or embezzlements or-
David E.: Sure.
Brent L.: … Bankruptcies or criminal activity-
David E.: Criminal matters, yeah.
Brent L.: Yeah, absolutely.
David E.: And what about if someone’s hiding assets and you’re in the midst of a family court case looking for child support, or you’re dealing with trying to find things. That’s-
Brent L.: Exactly. Child support is … Sometimes people buy their girlfriends cars, or rent them apartments, or just stash money in different accounts.
David E.: Which could go back to our community waste discussion we had earlier.
Brent L.: Absolutely. We can find hidden bank accounts and hidden assets and brokerage accounts and things like that, if someone’s trying to squirrel cash or money away that needs to be found in terms of child support or custody agreements, and spousal support, things of that nature.
David E.: Awesome. All right.
Brent L.: We can certainly find that.
David E.: Well, thank you. That’s about all the time we have for today’s show. [crosstalk 00:54:59] You have been listening to Family Law Report. I’m David Enevoldsen, an attorney with Family Law Guys, an Arizona law firm here in Arizona. I’ve had with me Brent LaJeunesse from Investigative Business Solutions. Brent, one more time. If people want to reach out to you, how do they get you?
Brent L.: 480-254-4661, or online at azprivatei.com.
David E.: All right. We’ve been talking today about private investigators and family law matters, and particularly cheating and affairs and what indicators are of that. Hope you join us again next week on Sunday at noon for more of the latest on family law here on Independent Talk, 1100 KFNX. Thank you everyone for listening.
Speaker 4: Family Law Report is hosted by Family Law Guys, an Arizona family law firm. Family Law Report is dedicated to confronting difficult issues related to marriage, divorce and children. This can range everywhere from addressing the legalities and controversies of topics like gay marriage, to current problems with the divorce system, to simply providing tips to those getting married or going through a divorce or a custody fight. Tune in every Sunday to Family Law Report at noon here on KFNX. If you want to know more, or to schedule an appointment with David or another one of the Family Law Guys attorneys, call 480-565-8680. That’s 480-565-8680.