Is Reading Your Spouse’s E-Mail a Felony?

In the past, we have written about the impact that social media and E-mail are having in family law cases. It is now very common for divorce cases to involve some evidence obtained from e-mail, Facebook or other internet services. E-mail evidence was recently used in a Michigan divorce, but now the man who obtained that E-mail evidence is facing criminal charges for doing so.

Leon Walker suspected his wife was carrying on an affair. His wife was then on her third marriage and he suspected she was involved with her second husband. Knowing that her second husband had been arrested for domestic violence in the past, and suspecting his wife was taking their 3-year-old daughter along on liaisons with her second husband, Mr. Walker logged into his wife’s Gmail account using the laptop they shared.

His wife found out he accessed her e-mail account when messages between her and her second husband appeared as evidence of infidelity in their divorce, which was finalized earlier this month. His wife and prosecutors believe that Mr. Walker, a computer technician, illegally hacked into her e-mail account. Leon Walker contends he accessed her e-mail account with her permission before, and that she kept the password in a notebook next to the computer they shared.

Prosecutors are now charging Leon Walker for obtaining the e-mail evidence of infidelity for use in his divorce case. They are charging him with a felony for violating a computer misuse statute that is generally reserved for charging identity thieves and people who hack into business computer systems. It is very rare for this sort of statute to be used to charge an individual for reading his or her spouse’s e-mail.

Sources:

ABC News, “Husband in Hot Water: Man Faces Five Years in Prison for Snooping Through Wife’s E-Mails,” Chris Bury and Bret Hovell, 12/28/2010

Chicago Tribune, “Man to fight charges he hacked into wife’s e-mails,” 12/30/2010