To prove your spouse has been unfaithful, you have collected and analyzed your records and subpoenaed documents. When the information indicates extensive spending in a variety of places (and even on a variety of women), you may feel overwhelmed by all the details. How do you weave them together into stories explaining his pattern of behavior for use by your attorney in deposition and at trial?

In my case, I needed to incorporate a number of dimensions into an overall picture:

• Time
• Money he spent on hotels and restaurants, where he was and whether the spending was suspicious (meaning it was not expensed for business nor was he traveling with me)
• Cash withdrawn from our joint account or credit line
• Other suspicious credit card charges
• Where I was when the money was being spent
• When he had the hidden phones, the women he was calling/texting and where they were from
• Where I was and our family schedule.

I reasoned the best way to look at everything together was to put the data into a visual timeline showing when and where things happened. I used the Google calendar format as my timeline because I could enter most of the data on the calendar date on which it occurred. This format helped me link cash withdrawals to hotel and restaurant charges and even to other credit card charges. In addition, I could compare the Google calendar history to my own Google calendar, since I had used that format to keep track of my business and personal time for most of the same time period. The example below shows a snapshot of the Google calendar I developed. It shows Scott’s behavior from 6/10 – 23, 2012, the time period covered by a third vignette I detail below.

In some cases, I could also link this to my weekly summary of his calls and texts to the women. This gave me information about who he was calling when the spending was occurring. Finally, since I had subpoenaed his time records from his consulting firm, I could also check to see what he reported from a work perspective.

This may or may not be the most effective approach for you – it really depends upon the behavior you have and the questions you are trying to get answered. As you think about this, my suggestion is to start with the questions you are trying to answer and see if it helps you organize the data. My specific questions were

• How, where and when was he spending money?
• Who was he spending it on?
• Where was I when he was spending it?

By pulling everything together on the Google calendar, then comparing it to my own calendar, I was able to identify specific events I could write up as the vignettes of Scott’s behavior. I could also show the evidence backing up the vignette. Here are the details of how to build the Google calendar, then use it to create the vignettes.

 

I. The Data Available

Information You Have

From all of your previous work, you will have spreadsheets and other data including:

• Teller Assisted Withdrawal spreadsheet
• ATM Withdrawal spreadsheet
• Credit Line Withdrawal spreadsheet
• Suspicious Credit Card Charges spreadsheets, from various credit cards
• Phone Histories sorted a few different ways
  • For each woman called, a record of when the calls/texts occurred
  • A spreadsheet summarizing who he called/texted in each week

Information You Should Acquire

Subpoena his work calendar or time sheets – anything showing how he was reporting his time to his business colleagues (Scott was a consultant so was required to keep time records). You may find he has logged vacation time when the data show he wasn’t on vacation with you (Scott did so on at least one occasion).

It will be also helpful to have a record of what you and your children were doing. This will help you determine if, when you were away, he left the kids in the care of babysitters while he was off with his mistress. I found this to be the true on many occasions.

I had my own Google calendar showing my work, family and personal schedule. In addition, I was lucky to have saved electronic versions of the detailed weekly notes I prepared for our au pairs. These included information given to the au pairs about when I would be leaving and coming back and Scott’s corresponding travel schedule.

 

II. Putting it Together: Building His Google Calendar

From the financial spreadsheets, enter the expenditure or withdrawal as a calendar entry on the date on which it happened. For hotels, show the dates of the stay, which is usually indicated on the charge detail in the credit card statements. It is critical to develop a color code for entering the data in a way that makes sense to you and helps you see the patterns. I used the following color scheme for entering the data because I wanted to show where he was (I color coded the hotel and restaurant charges). I also wanted to call out hotel/restaurant spending he expensed (light green) and the hotel/ restaurant charges when I knew I was with him (yellow). Finally, I color coded the cash withdrawals and other credit card spending (dark green). Note the color scheme tracks back to first of my initial three questions: How, where and when was he spending the money?

Connecticut/ White Plains – Scott Personal Hotel/Restaurant

Downtown Boston- Scott Personal Hotel/Restaurant

Gail and Scott Together Hotel/Restaurant

Cash Withdrawn or Non Hotel/Restaurant Credit Card Charge

New Hampshire/Northern MA Scott Personal Hotel/Restaurant

New Jersey Scott Personal Hotel/Restaurant

NYC Scott Personal Hotel/Restaurant

Other Scott Personal Hotel/Restaurant

Western MA Scott Personal Hotel/Restaurant

Hotel/Restaurant Expensed by Scott

With all of the data entered, your calendar should look something like the example given at the beginning of this section.

 

III. Finding the Vignettes

I had no hard and fast rule for finding the vignettes. Instead, I first reflected on all I had learned from my detailed data collection. What were the things that surprised me and warranted a closer look? These included stays at casinos (we never went to casinos), hotel charges showing check in and check out of a hotel on the same day, three and even four cash withdrawals on the same day and many other curious charges and withdrawals. I looked for these in the Google calendar to see what else was happening.

I also looked carefully through his calendar over the four-year period. Looking at everything in one place showed quite a bit. The color coding of the location of the hotels and restaurants was particularly revealing. For example, I found a number of occasions where he was booked at two hotels on one day, one in Connecticut and one further south in New York City or New Jersey. Appeared he enjoyed a quicky in Connecticut on the way down to work in New York or New Jersey.

He was active around holidays, particularly Thanksgiving (and coincidentally his birthday) and Christmas. He also played around extensively near my birthday.

Finally, I thought about specific events in my calendar and looked to see what he was doing. I wondered, for example, what he did when I was travelling, either on business or to California to visit my mother? He followed the “when the cat is away the mouse (more accurately rat) will play rule,” going on extensive spending sprees when I was away. He didn’t seem to mind leaving the kids in the care of the au pair, either.

I was also dumbfounded by his exploits before and after the two romantic long weekends we took in early 2012, Barcelona in February and France in June. The weekend in France is the example I detail below.

All of these surprises helped me to identify vignette targets which I then investigated by looking at all of the relevant pieces of information. As a result, I could weave the story of what he appeared to have been doing.

 

IV. Assembling the Backup Data 

My lawyers wanted to use the vignettes in their examination of Scott, either in deposition or at trial. It was therefore critical my write up was backed up by the evidence. I have reproduced below the packet I prepared for a third vignette: Our Weekend in France.

Our Weekend in France

I had two client engagements in June of 2012, the first in Geneva, Switzerland (June 12 – 14). The second was the following week in Dubai (June 19 – 20). Since I was going to be in Switzerland over the weekend anyway, Scott decided to come so we could spend the weekend together. We spent the first night, June 14, at my business hotel in Geneva. The next day we drove to Lac Du Annecy, and stayed at a hotel on the lake. It was a hotel we had visited almost twenty years earlier, before our first daughter was born. We had another romantic and sexy weekend. We ate wonderful meals and sat by the lake at the end of each day drinking champagne. We even took the same hike we had taken on our first visit. It was a really special trip, or so I thought.

Scott was up to no good the week before he came to Switzerland. I flew to Europe on Sunday and Scott drove to New York City on Monday. He said he had to work In New York City Monday, June 11 through Wednesday June 13, then would fly to Switzerland on the 14^th. He stayed at his usual hotel in New York City and expensed only a portion of the bill. On June 11, he made two bank stops and withdrew a total of $800. He must have spent all of it on the 11^th because he made two additional withdrawals of $300, June 12 and 13.

He texted and called five women June 11 – 13 including Miss New Jersey, Miss Connecticut and a number of his New York sugar babies. Who knows how many of them rotated through his hotel before he left to meet me in Switzerland.

After our weekend in France, I went on to Dubai and Scott flew back to New York to work for the week. We were both scheduled to travel home to Massachusetts on Friday. Scott stayed at his usual hotel, June 18 – 22 and expensed a part of the bill. He withdrew $3,000 from our joint bank account the day he returned to New York (June 18). His phone record showed he had called and texted at least six women that week, three of whom were from New York. Was he hiring a more expensive hooker that week or just rotating in a number of them?

He had charges in Ramsey, New Jersey on June 21, including a charge for $267 at a liquor store he frequented. He must have seen Miss New Jersey that week too. She didn’t get dinner, just an expensive bottle of wine. Did she go back and stay the final night at his hotel in New York City that evening or was she just the entertainment for the day?

He must have extinguished the $3000 he withdrew in New York as he made a withdrawal of $3200 near our home on June 22. The eentire week, one of our daughters had been left in the care of our au pair.

 

Backup Material:

1. Calendar

 

2. Credit Card Charges: The hotel and New Jersey charges on one of his cards (for brevity, additional charges, including the charges he expensed per his business expense reporting, have not been included)

3. Bank Withdrawals: ATM and Teller Assisted Withdrawals

4. Phone/Text Summary for the Time Period (For brevity, detailed backup of call/text record for each woman not reproduced here):

June 11 – 14

Name	Calls	Texts
Miss New Jersey	19	47
Miss Connecticut	3	101
M. Andruck	0	10
Y. Chen (NYC)	0	18
W. Linden (NYC)	0	31

June 17 – 22

Name	Calls	Texts
Miss New Jersey	28	110
Miss Connecticut	0	29
M. Andruck	0	13
Y. Chen (NYC)	0	37
W Linden (NYC)	0	34
W. Gift (NYC)	11	13

In a similar way, I was able to provide the detailed back up on each of the vignettes I wrote. The final work product I gave to my attorneys for each vignette consisted of a write up of the vignette and hard copies of the back up evidence.

The Google calendar emerged as a nifty little tool for arranging Scott’s spending. It was a critical timeline helping me identify and describe the vignettes illustrating the magnitude and range of Scott’s extramarital activity.

It also made clear some of his really crazy behavior including his multiple bank and hotel stops in a day, his “cheating on steroids” around holidays, birthdays and vacations and more. In a deeper sense, I finally understood why Scott really left. It was really quite simple. He just couldn’t continue to keep three balls in the air – me and his family, his work and his extensive sex sideshow. He had even admitted he wasn’t delivering at work when he moved out, though of course citing our deteriorating relationship as the reason for his slacking off.

He had to get rid of one of the three and that was me.

I thought I had learned as much as I ever would about Scott’s behavior from 2008 to when he moved out. Maybe he would reveal more under oath in deposition or at trial, but I doubted it.

I underestimated my computer sleuthing capability.