Marriage:
1 a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage.
Above is the definition of marriage, and into today’s society marriage can be between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman and a man and a man. The definition doesn’t define each person who enters into a contractual relationship; it just explains the participants and nothing else. Marriage is more than a contract, it is a relationship between two people who come together believing they know each other, that the words they have expressed are true; their lives become one and they walk the same path hoping to grow old together. That is exactly what our Client, Kimberly believed when she exchanged vows with her husband, Jonathan. Kimberly never met Jonathan’s family prior to their marriage as he stated they lived abroad. Jonathan didn’t have a 9 to 5 job; he worked from home on his computer while Kimberly worked outside the home for a large Indianapolis based company. Every day she returned home and Jonathan was in his office working, or so she believed. Remember, she trusted and believed everything Jonathan told her about his past, his employment, his desires and dreams until they celebrated their 3rd Anniversary. There was nothing prior to that date that would make her believe Jonathan was anything but whom she believed him to be. Kimberly never thought to conduct any background investigation upon him.
Jonathan paid all the bills from a joint checking account they shared and put together a budget so that someday they could build their dream house and retire at an early age. They both agreed to this arrangement and Kimberly, who had been single for nearly 15 years of her adult hood, took a breather from financial responsibility and accepted her weekly allowance allotment. Jonathan had taken over all the bills, their retirement fund and their investments and had done quite well for them. He had shown Kimberly statements and they would celebrate each milestone they crossed into financial freedom. On the day of their anniversary Kimberly came home from work and Jonathan wasn’t in his office, he had left a note for her saying he was running errands and would she please meet him at their favorite restaurant. Excitedly as Kimberly rushed upstairs to get ready when she saw his computer screen flashed so she walked into his office to shut the computer down.
When she saw the email she couldn’t help but read it. The Subject Line was “Enjoyed today with you”, when Kimberly opened it up, she learned that Jonathan had been involved with another woman on their anniversary and she was heartbroken. She immediately wanted to kick him out, to ruin him, to hurt him as he had just hurt her, but she didn’t. She went to dinner with him as if nothing happened and the next day she contacted an attorney, who told her she needed to hire a Private Investigative Company to look into his background. Kimberly contacted us and we immediately began an investigation. We learned Jonathan had been married before, as a matter of fact, through our financial investigation and an asset search to find hidden assets, we learned Jonathan had multiple hidden assets with co-owners who were not his wife. A good asset investigator has the ability in finding hidden assets. Kimberly stated that Jonathan started acting strange and one day she saw he was deleting files on his computer. We suggested she bring the computer in for computer forensics services, which she did. We conducted a forensic data recovery and found many excel spreadsheets he had saved with valuable information. Kimberly immediately filed for divorce. She learned he had transferred all their savings into an account with only him as a signor, he had withdrawn money from her retirement account and the checking account was depleted. She also learned he had opened up Credit Cards in her name and they were all maxed out.
Our Computer Forensic Expert recovered emails to various financial institutions with different Social Security Numbers for him and found banking institutions linked to him. We also discovered that Jonathan had failed to obtain a divorce from his wife prior to his marriage to Kimberly. With our personal asset search discovery, Kimberly was able to recoup a good portion of her missing assets. She also was helpful to other women Jonathan had taken advantage of in the past. One thing these women had in common, they could all testify against him in court and were rewarded that he had some pretty hefty court fees he had to pay not using their money.
-Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations
