Divorce judge orders married couple to swap their Facebook logins so lawyers can trawl for evidence of cheating
By Daniel Bates
16th November 2011
A judge has ordered a husband and wife to swap Facebook and MySpace passwords as part of their divorce proceedings.
Judge Kenneth Shluger told Stephen and Courtney Gallion to give up their login details for all their social networking sites so their lawyers could trawl for incriminating evidence.
The couple must also hand over any other such information for dating websites like EHarmony and match.com, which Mrs Gallion had already joined.
Both the couple have been banned from changing the password or deleting any material for the foreseeable future by the judge at New London Supreme Court in Connecticut.
Nor can they log in as the other person and pretend to be them to prank others.
The extraordinary move came after Mr Gallion’s lawyer claimed that his wife’s life on the Internet could provide ammunition for their divorce battle.
Forbes reported that during a hearing attorney Gary Traystman asked the judge for the unusual measure at which point Mrs Gallion immediately texted a friend and asked them to change the passwords and delete some messages.
Fearing she was destroying evidence Mr Traystman appealed to the judge who made the ruling in his favour, and Mrs Gallion complied.
The order reads: 'Counsel for each party shall exchange the password(s) of their client's Facebook and dating website passwords.
'The parties themselves shall not be given the passwords of the other.
'If either party already possesses the password of the other, the party whose password is in the possession of the other party may change their password and give the new password to opposing counsel only.'
Mr Traystman said his client asked for the motion after seeing some incriminating emails on the home computer he shares with his wife.
He said that his client has checked his social network profiles and has nothing to hide, although he admitted it would be hard for him if he discovered his wife had been cheating.
Either way the evidence would give an insight into how seriously she takes her responsibilities to their children.
He said: 'It would be painful for many spouses to see what their spouses are doing.'
The incident is not the first time that the courts have intervened in the use of social media.
During a hearing last year a Pennsylvania judge ordered a plaintiff to hand over Facebook and MySpace passwords so he could see pictures of him on a fishing trip after he claimed he was suffering a physical disability.
In another case last month a different judge in Pennsylvania became a Facebook 'friend' of a litigant so he could look through Facebook postings during a personal injury case.
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