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It is important for a New Jersey Private Investigator to obtain evidence corresponding to the elements of the NJ cohabitation law as described in the last two paragraphs in the previous section. It is always preferable to secure as much evidence as possible in order to reach the goal of achieving a prime facie showing of cohabitation under the New Jersey Alimony Laws.

• The 2014 revisions to the New Jersey Cohabitation statute describe cohabitation as involving an intimate, mutually supportive personal relationship in which a couple has undertaken privileges and duties that are commonly associated with marriage or civil union, but the statute requires the couple to necessarily maintain a single common household.   

Our New Jersey Private Investigator Firm conducted multiple cases since the 2014 revision to the NJ Alimony Laws. An overwhelming majority of the subjects of the New Jersey Alimony Investigation had “separate residences”. In some of the “separate residence” cases, the couples created elaborate schemes in order to evade detection.  A woman pretended to live in a basement home of a single-family residence with her child, when in fact the basement home belonged to the woman’s boyfriend. An investigation determined the couple and child actually resided together several miles from the “alleged home”. On the other end of the spectrum, we would find the male part of the cohabitation list a friend or parents’ home as their address while actually residing with the recipient of the alimony.

In any event, whatever the scheme a couple creates there is always an investigation plan that can overcome the fraudulent scheme to continue receiving alimony.  In many instances, a private investigator can employ a full New Jersey Cohabitation Investigation through a combination of hidden cameras, surveillance, and background work on the couple.

1. Another element of the New Jersey Alimony Law is if the investigator can determine interwoven finances, such as combined bank accounts and other shared liabilities or holdings.  In most instances, this element is established after a New Jersey Private Detective is successful in establishing a prima facie case of cohabitation, which would then entitle the payor of alimony to receive discovery in the case.  However, in several New Jersey Cohabitation Investigations, our agency was successful in identifying possible financial entanglements through the use of open-source social media investigations. In addition, we were also able to link the recipient of alimony through property ownership. However, as stated before the best way to discover intertwined finances is by the New Jersey Private Investigator presenting prime facie showing of cohabitation thereby permitting the client to obtain financial and other discoveries.
2. A critical element in a New Jersey Cohabitation Investigation is the perception by the couple’s family and their social circle that the relationship is a serious one. Very often couples involved in a relationship cannot help themselves from shouting out to the world that they are involved in a serious and loving bond with one another.  Couples share this information by posting photographs to social media of themselves involved in couple activities, family events, and activities where they co-mingle with each other’s children or other family members.  It is amazing what people post which underscores the relationship as being a situation of cohabitation and thus indicating the fraudulent receipt of alimony.  This type of recklessness on the part of alimony recipients has often been the death knell of an ex-spouse’s alimony!!  Because, it is then easy for a New Jersey Private Investigator to conduct an open-source social media investigation and screen grab all those photographs, comments, and post “likes”. I have literally put together two hundred-plus pages in social media reports in addition to my overall activity report pertaining to the entirety of the cohabitation investigation. I cannot stress enough, if you are reading this article because you think your ex-spouse is cohabitating, pull as much social media as you can, and file it away chronologically, you will not regret it.
3. Sharing or joint responsibility for living expenses is another element that a New Jersey Private Investigator can obtain evidence of. However, evidence of this element is best done in discovery after the private detective puts together a prima facie case which will then open up financial discovery. Private Investigators can often obtain some evidence of the sharing of living expenses through both social media and surveillance. For instance, I recently had a cohabitation case in which the subject continually posted the restaurants and multiple other places she and her boyfriend had visited and spent money on. While writing my social media report, I prominently displayed these places where the couple had spent money and a link to the particular business. The attorneys loved it because it provided them with a roadmap of where to look for the couple’s expenditures in their banking accounts and match it up to the social media report. Simply put, if the payee of alimony had not publicly posted where she and her boyfriend were spending money, we would not have been able to match up the expenses.  Also, as an example of surveillance and finances, in the same case I had just cited above, the payee of alimony went to a high-end Bergen County Grocery Store while I was surveilling her. When my subject came out of the store and loaded the bags into her car she drove away, and I followed her.  My subject drove straight to the boyfriend’s and brought several bags of groceries inside the home.
4. The Elements in the New Jersey Alimony Law regarding living together, frequency of contact, duration of the relationship, and other indicia of a mutually supportive and intimate personal relationship are very important. These alimony elements are definitely in the wheelhouse of a New Jersey Private Detective while conducting an alimony investigation. When putting in place an investigation plan for this element it is critical to pick the client’s brain for any useful intelligence in terms of what is happening. Most investigations will have some amount of site surveillance by a New Jersey Private detective. In a perfect world (which is often the case) valuable evidence can be obtained by deploying hidden cameras to record activities. Depending on the case, it is possible to have up to four cameras deployed. The deployment of cameras is a work-intensive way of obtaining evidence, however, for the amount of time and coverage a client receives, the costs remain much less than the cost associated with “in-person surveillance”.  These hidden cameras selected for the right environment are often devastating to the subject that is being investigated. The hidden cameras often capture a plethora of evidence. Our hidden cameras will capture the subjects of our investigation kissing, embracing, doing tasks around the home, driving each other’s vehicles as well as all manners of activity at the homes being surveilled.  The amount of evidence a private detective can gather with the deployment of these cameras is limitless, only dictated by the activity at the location of camera deployment.  After seeing the evidence produced from these hidden static cameras, the recipient of alimony who is being investigated is often left with no other option but to take a settlement and end the alimony. As to the duration of the relationship, the duration is often time-stamped by some form of social media posting or other types of evidence such as photographs at sporting events, family functions, and/or other activities.
5. “Sharing in household chores”, this element of cohabitation is also an important area in which a New Jersey Private Detective can obtain relevant evidence. For instance, if there are two “potential residences” of both subjects, it will be possible to photograph both of the couple sharing chores. Our static hidden cameras often capture subjects sharing chores at their respective homes. Chores such as snow removal, the handling of garbage, gardening, and other landscaping activities. 

As to sharing the chores, a funny thing occurred once when I was conducting on-site surveillance and taking video. Early in the morning, from a distance, I captured the female subject of the investigation carrying out a large nylon bag from her boyfriend’s residence. In my opinion, the bag was a laundry-type bag, however, when doing a video on surveillance you’re focused on obtaining your video while at the same time being aware of your surroundings so no one sees that you are filming. I followed the female subject to her nearby residence, and once again I filmed the female bringing the bag into her house. Late that evening as my surveillance continued, I videoed the same scenario with the black bag, this time in reverse, the female subject leaves her home with the same bag and brings it back over to her boyfriend’s nearby home.  A couple of days later while pulling and reviewing my video from that three-day surveillance, I was shocked, and thought it very funny that the bag the female subject was carrying back and forth between the two homes actually had large white lettering stenciled from top to bottom of the bag that said “LAUNDRY”. I thought that rather funny, as a police officer for many years, I conducted many investigations, and when I saw that bag, I chuckled to myself and couldn’t help but thinking that the photographing of that laundry bag moving between homes was synonymous with finding and identifying the gun in a homicide investigation with a note pinned to it with the words “murder weapon”. 

 In any event, when a New Jersey Private Detective obtains evidence of a couple sharing chores during a Cohabitation Investigation you are also checking a second box, of a separate element in cohabitation, the private investigator is also demonstrating that the couple is also involved in a “mutually supportive” relationship.