Custody Battle Gone Very Wrong: Mom’s Cellphone Tracker Shows How Misguided Dad Really Is
I have reported previously about a case called M.M.B. (V.) v. C.M.V., the background facts of which are not terribly unique: After their split in 2013 the parents had agreed to a “parallel parenting” and equal-time arrangement for their three children. The mother now claimed that in the time since, the father had been engaging in a concerted effort to alienate her from them. She asked for sole custody and an order that the father undergo therapy.
What’s more noteworthy is the rather epic court ruling in their case, which spanned over 1200 paragraphs, where the court recounted a dizzying array of tactics by each of the parents; overwhelmingly, however, the ruling focused on the misconduct of the father, who the court repeatedly noted had viewed himself as being “in a war” with his former spouse and determined to “win” at all costs.
Among the many accusations of rather mind-boggling misconduct on his part, one of the more interesting ones involved him using an app installed on the mother’s own cell phone to “track” her location. As the court explained the gist of the mother’s testimony:
During the last two years of the relationship prior to separation, her evidence is that the [father] became more volatile and threw things at or near her. The [mother] testified that he was obsessed with the idea that she was having an affair. Her evidence is that she had never had an affair during the marriage.
She further testified that the [father] had a constant need to be “in control” and that he utilized a feature on her cell phone to be able to track her whereabouts. Two examples that she cited were, on one occasion when she attended at a lawyer’s office in July 2011, he telephoned her four times during her appointment with the lawyer, knowing exactly where she was at the time. The second example she gave happened in August 2011. They were in New York for a few days and she left early to return to school. While the [mother] was still in New York, she claims that he was able to track her whereabouts and knew that she had taken a different route home. She says that she did so in order to look at possible housing for her and the children. He accused her that she was travelling to a residence for purposes of having an affair.
As further proof that he was tracking her whereabouts through her cell phone, she indicated that she, as a result of these situations, learned that there was a “track my phone” feature on her phone which she then disabled. Shortly thereafter, however, she testified that he insisted on having her cell phone for some unrelated purpose. When he returned it to her she noticed that that the tracker had been reconnected. …
When asked about the allegation of tracking the [mother] on her cell phone, his explanation for his knowledge of her going to a lawyer is that their cleaning lady told him this in July 2011 when the [mother] was going to the lawyer.
When asked about the feature of “find my phone” so that he could allegedly track her whereabouts from his phone, he has a very “plausible” explanation. He claims that because he was using his phone for Association work they jointly downloaded this app so that she would be able to find his phone in the event that he lost it.
Regarding the knowledge that he had that the [mother] was on a different route on the way home from New York City, the [father] once again has a “plausible” explanation. His brother who is a real estate agent, by happenstance, was showing a house across the road from where the [mother] was driving. His brother took it upon himself to call the [father] to report that he had seen his vehicle, thinking that it was the [father] but of course it was the [mother].
This court views each of these explanations with a great deal of cynicism.
That cynicism was borne from many other conflicting and incredible explanations by the father, including one piece of “smoking gun” evidence noted by the court several hundred paragraphs later:
In response to the [mother’s] concern that the [father] was tracking her and the children’s whereabouts, the [father’s] response is somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, he “denied this” and stated that he “doesn’t care where she goes”. On the other hand, on several occasions, he admitted to “wanting to locate the children and not her”, which he believes to be a safety issue. He said he ”was able to locate the children by their cell phone devices”.
This was an admission by the [father] that the court finds is consistent with the evidence given by the [mother] at trial; that she knew that the [father] was tracking her movements through her cell phone. The court finds that this is inconsistent with the [father’s] “explanations” of how he knew the [mother’s] whereabouts on two separate occasions at about the time of the separation. He specifically denied under oath at trial that he was tracking her whereabouts through her cell phone. Undoubtedly, he had forgotten what he said during the assessment, or did not expect this court would take the time to read all of the exhibits.
Particularly as it relates to the father’s highly misguided win-at-all-costs focus, the M.M.B. (V.) v. C.M.V. decision is a virtual judicial textbook on “How Not to Behave” in the post-separation phase. It could be interesting reading for those who can get through the 1,200-paragraph judgment.
For the full-text of the decision, see
