HOUSTON – Rob Kimmons is a professional spy — the kind jilted husbands and wives pay to track, monitor, and bust cheating spouses.
http://liarcatchers.com/electronic_surveillance.html
“Our job is not always that difficult,” Kimmons said. “Some people, they just don’t really (care). They’re not very careful especially considering they’re married.”
A lot has changed since Kimmons first started in the business back in 1981.
From social networking sites like Facebook to tracking devices that private investigators can mount on the cheaters car and follow, technology is making it easier to document the kind of behavior that makes divorce lawyers smile.
But no matter how advanced things get, it’s hard to argue with good old fashion video proof.
Kimmons has a library of cheaters from closed cases of years past. Videos that show wives and husbands doing things that would make a soap opera writer blush.
Kimmons caught one wife sneaking out of her house in the middle of the night while her husband and children slept.
“She would walk down the street because she couldn’t drive out of the driveway with her husband there,” he said. “And (she would) borrow a car.”
Then she’d drive over to a bar, have a few drinks with the bartender, then have a few minutes of extramarital sex with him in that car she borrowed from her neighbor.
“You even see her throwing the condom out the window,” Kimmons says. “In a minute she gets on top of him and everything. It’s just so blatant.”
The video appears to catch six whole minutes of front seat lovemaking in a Walgreens parking lot.
“If you’re gonna do something that stupid in a public place, then we can film it, we can tape record it, because you’re doing it in a public place,” said FOX 26 legal analyst Chris Tritico.
But there are things that by law, a private investigator as well as a suspecting spouse can not do.
“If you want to follow your spouse, follow them,” Tritico said. “If you want to get your friends to follow your spouse in public, have your friends follow your spouse. But don’t hack into their computer. Don’t hack into their cell phone. Don’t act like you’re someone else on social networking devices. All of those things are gonna get you in trouble. Texas law is very clear that you are not allowed to record or listen in on a conversation that you are not a party to. In Texas, if you are not a party to the conversation, you don’t have a right to eavesdrop on it.”
That privacy law is part of the reason many of the covert cameras private investigators use don’t record sound.
The cameras can be disguised as cell phones, jump drives, even key chains, and it makes it pretty easy to capture evidence.
Kimmons’ library includes footage of married men on dates at an expensive restaurants and a cheating wife getting cozy with her physical trainer over drinks.
“It’s unfortunate,” he said. “(As) part of the job, I’ve run into people I know. I’ve run into famous people. I’ve run into attorneys that I do work for on other cases, a judge or two over the years, a reporter.”
Kimmons says 80 to 90 percent of his investigations end with the suspecting spouses worst fears confirmed. Their husband or wife is cheating, but the confirmation is expensive.
Private investigators charge an average of $85 per hour, plus mileage and other expenses, and most won’t take a case for less than $3,000.
“If they’re on a limited budget I’ll say, ‘look, the best thing to do is leave town. Let him know way ahead of time, or her. Leave town for four or five days where he knows you’re not going to be around at all, or she knows, and if they’re up to something they’re going to take advantage of that opportunity and let us work it’,” Kimmons said.
