Scary revelations about husband - help!

WNC Gal

New Member
I don't know who to talk to about this. Last week some "friends" of my husband showed up at his office and told him that there was a major issue that could cause him lots of trouble but if he wrote a check for $20,000 it would all go away.

At first he told me that it had to do with a client of his and that he had "helped" his girlfriend with a problem. And supposedly now this couple had gone to the state police to report his supposedly illegal assistance and that the state police contacted this friend of his. When I asked what it was really about, he was a bit vague, but said it had something to do with trying to exchange sexual favors for this "service". I was stunned. He said nothing actually happened but he did call this person. When I asked why, he said that he was contemplating "doing something" with her.

He later got a call from the "friend" who was wanting big cash to settle with these people and I eavesdropped on his side of the conversation - I really needed to know what I am up against!!!!
It turns out that the whole issue is really that he met a 16 year old girl at a nearby store and was chatting with her. Then he went back another time to buy something and this girl was "hitting on him". He gave her his phone number supposedly to call for babysitting work. Later he called her twice (again supposedly to chat about babysitting). But the girl told her parents that she was being "stalked" by this guy and they hired a security firm to do surveillance. The firm traced the cell phone number to my husband's number - and coincidently, the security guy is someone he knows QUITE well - they are friends! Well, apparently he told another friend of my husband's and the second guy is the one who came up with the story that if my husband paid him $20K, he could make this situation go away.

My husband did write the check and give it to them but I talked to him that night and told him he needed to give it back as it is totally wrong!!! So we got the money back, but the friend who was trying to scam him for the money is probably very upset that his "scam" didn't work and he may lash out.

So now we are in limbo, terrified, waiting for the next shoe to fall. If this family figures out who he is, I don't know what they will do. I want to believe my husband that nothing actually happened - a few phone calls and no more.

But I don't know if there is any legal issue with this contact with the 16 year old. And of course, I am devastated and unsure how to handle this whole thing. My husband has apologized profusely, over and over, and said it was a stupid mistake. And it will never happen again!

To me, stupid is something you do that only hurts yourself (such as sticking your finger in a light socket). WRONG is something you do which is ethically, morally, intellectually WRONG and will hurt many people.

I don't know what to do. I will certainly seek marital counseling but I also need individual counseling for myself as I cannot handle this stressor on top of all of our difficult child woes.

I appreciate any feedback, advice you can offer.
 

WhymeMom?

No real answers to life..
Hard to move forward when I don't think you have all the facts....$20,000 would be alot to pay for 2-3 phone calls about "babysitting"?????? Sounds as if more has gone on and someone would have proof of that.....

Get your husband to level with you or tell him to go talk with an attorney to get the story out there. If someone is trying to extort money from you for a "non-incident", THAT is a crime.

Too many details are missing in this....hope you can get a few more answers and tell him to stay away from the 16 year old---they don't call them jail bait for nothing......
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Ok Im a bit confused...as Im sure you are!

It seems you have several issues going on here. First of all, either your husband has or could have solicited a minor for s e x. Not good. Even if he simply talked to her about it, things could get hinky for him.

The second issue seems to be that someone...who you seem to think was a friend...wants to blackmail you. Last time I looked extortion was still a crime. If anyone attempts to get you or him to pay money again, refuse and try to get that on tape.

I would be getting a lawyer pronto to advise me on what to do in this situation.
 

DazedandConfused

Well-Known Member
A piece of this puzzle seems to be missing. There's no law against talking to a 16 year old about babysitting. However, Extortion is against the law.

I agree with WmM, he needs to give you the COMPLETE low down on this. Explain that eventually it will all be revealed anyway and that you would rather hear it directly from HIM. Not knowning doesn't make it go away (Why oh why do some DHs think that???)

Geez, what is it with the some of the DHs on this board lately?? :slap:

You need all the details before you can proceed on what to do.

I'm sorry. ((hugs))
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Ditto. No way was your husband just chatting innocently or he wouldn't have agreed, so to speak, to the extortion.
I would talk to an attorney. You're going to have to tell someone who can get the whole story.
husband should not talk to anyone--especially his mobster friends--with-o an atty present. Not even answer the phone.

So sorry. {{hugs}}
 
A- he lied and told you that the $20,000 was for a client.

B- if he was only talking to this girl about babysitting, like he claimed, why would he not have told you?

C- he is being extorted. For calling a babysitter? Not likely. There is more to the story.

D- when the dust settles, he is apologizing to you profusely... for what? Calling a baby sitter? Nope. Sorry. There is more to this story.

I do not claim to know what happened, but it sure sounds like you got the Cliffnotes version.

And you are being blackmailed. Brace yourself, seek legal counsel, and draw as much strength from us as you need. I am so sorry.

(((((((hugs))))))))
 

Steely

Active Member
I am so sorry.......sounds truly awful. And I have nothing to add that the others have not already mentioned. Something smells really, really fishy, and I would trust no one at this point.

I remember most of your story about your daughter, because for some reason it really stuck with me. The sudden onset of all of those symptoms, Residential Treatment Center (RTC), her making up the scenarios of dead friends, her saying that she had been raped - but never any proof to substantiate anything.

When I read your post, the first thing that popped into my mind, is - if your husband, who obviously has the hots for a 16 year old when he is in his 40s - could have done anything to your daughter. God, I hope not.......but I just had to say the first thing that came to my mind. Please.....forgive me if I am way off base.........but it just came to me, especially given the fact that your daughter is so reluctance to substantiate any of her issues, that the abuse she talks about was from home.

My thoughts are prayers are with you.......I am so sorry you are having to endure so much.

 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Whether you believe husband or not, I'd get a lawyer YOU trust to sit and talk to You.

husband hasn't come clean. You don't get blackmailed for hitting on a 16 yr old, especially by "friends". There is much more to this story. husband has already fed you some pretty flimsy lies. (believe me, I've heard my share) Maybe after you consult a lawyer, you could have husband talk to him/her and see if his story holds up. If he's holding back odds are he'll crack under the critical eye and expert questioning of a good lawyer.

Sounds like one heck of a mess. Counseling for you sounds like a very good idea.

(((hugs)))
 

LittleDudesMom

Well-Known Member
I agree with most of the posters who say get an attorney fast. What your husband's friend tried to do is illegal. What your husband probably did, at the very least in immoral if not illegal - I hate to assume, but the fact that he didn't come clean right away is usally an admission of guilt.

You need to let your husband know right away that extortion is illegal and you are calling the police since he is telling you he did nothing wrong. Perhaps if you tell him that he will admit the story goes deeper. If he did approach this girl in a sexual manner, he needs help.

Sorry.

Sharon
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
I'm afraid I agree with the others. You need to talk to an attorney for yourself and see if he can help you sort through all this and the legal ramifications. You have been told very, very little here and most of what he's told you doesn't add up at all. He's not being straight with you and you deserve to know the truth. In all probability, it didn't happen the way he told you (forget the "babysitting" thing - that's pure B.S.) I hate to say it but if he wasn't in to something he shouldn't have been, he would have been completely truthful with you and he would have already gone to the police himself by now!

For one thing, most middle-aged married men don't go around chatting up 16 year olds in the store and become "friends" with them! Not with any kind of "good intentions" they don't. And certainly not making phone calls to them.

Could he have said something to this "friend" about the 16 year old, and then the "friend" decided to use this information to extort money out of him?

Or, another thing that occured to me (or maybe I just watch too much TV) ... could the girl and the ones trying to get the money out of him possibly be in it together? Like ... the girl comes on to older men and when she finds one willing to take her up on it, they threaten to turn the man in unless he comes up with a lot of money?

One thing I do know for sure ... if a man had been "inappropriate" with MY daughter when she was that age, I certainly would never agree to just forget it for $20,000 and not go to the police! Not for $20,000 or any amount of money! I would want to see his b*typical teen be put UNDER the jail!

Something is very, very wrong here and I sure hope you can get to the bottom of it all and find out what really happened. You deserve to know the truth, whatever it is. It sounds like a real mess, and I'm so very sorry that you are having to deal with all this.
 

Fran

Former desparate mom
So how did husband get his 20,000.00 back from his "friends"? I can't figure out if your husband is lying through his teeth or if there is a sinister world he is involved in.
Who has 20,000.00 just laying around that they are willing to pay to avoid a scandal that isn't true?
I don't know many husbands who discuss babysitting at all but definitely not with a 16yr old.

I'm with the group here trying to understand the whole story but it doesn't really add up. These gentlemen are not his friends that's for sure and your husband is not as innocent as he says.
 

SRL

Active Member
I wouldn't buy the talking about babysitting for a moment.

I think you need to get a lawyer, not only to help sort out the whole mess but to protect you and your daughter.
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
I was wondering about the $20,000 too, like Fran said. That part makes no sense at all!

Not too many extortionists who had already gotten money out of someone would just agree to <u>GIVE IT BACK</u> because the victim changed their mind about paying it! I can pretty well guarantee you that it didn't happen that way!

Would he even have access to a spare $20,000 that he could just write a check on and it not be noticed by somebody? Not too many people do. That's an awful lot of money!
 

Marguerite

Active Member
You have a clear definition in your head about what is "stupid" and what is "wrong". Do not assume that others have the same definitions. Especially do not assume that ANY man, especially one with his own self-interests taking control over his actions, has the same definitions.

A friend of mine (haven't seen him in years - I'm glad) had the hots for me. I continually made it clear that I valued our friendship too much to do anything so stupid; besides, I'm faithful to my husband completely and would never contemplate straying. I told this friend I'd already had other offers and to "take a number and wait", probably for eternity. Better still, look elsewhere because all he'd get from me is a cup of coffee and a chat.

It didn't stop him trying and as he kept persisting (and getting rebuffed) I noticed an alarming thing - he would describe a woman as "asking for it" or "flirting" and would say things like, "Your eyes really twinkled then. Your words say no, but your eyes don't."
I reminded him that eyes do not give out light on their own, they can merely reflect light - any twinkle he saw was in his own imagination.
But it made me realise - this man saw what he wanted to see, and he had an amazing knack for self-deception, especially if he thought it was something he could use to his advantage. And when he began to comment on how my daughter's eyes twinkled - I showed him the door.

Your husband described this girl as "coming onto him". The girl works behind a counter. She has probably been trained to be polite and friendly to customers. A girl who is flirting would not then tell her parents or express concern about being stalked. Yes, a girl can misunderstand a perfectly innocent situation, but it seems your husband also misunderstood when he said she was "coming onto him".

Even if a 16 year old girl WAS flirting with him, he should NEVER even think of acting on it. She is under-age; he is also married.

But he rang her about babysitting. Since when does HE organise babysitting? And why organise it with someone you don't know? And why not talk to you about it - "Hey, honey, there's a bright young girl down at the shop, I think she'd make a good babysitter, she seems really efficient, why don't you drop in and see what you think when you meet her?" That's what a GENUINE man would say to his wife, if the enquiry was genuine.

This girl told her parents (or someone) who put a detective onto it. So she wasn't happy, she clearly was NOT flirting with him, instead he made her feel very uncomfortable.

Think how this girl is feeling - scared, because she hasn't a clue if this man is dangerous, or if he is watching her at night, or watching her at other times - this can be terrifying for a young girl. So many men just do not realise how scared they can make others, purely out of their own inappropriate interest.

It's quite possible that the worst your husband did was give this girl his phone number. If he gave it to her out of macho bravado - a pretty girl who smiled at him - then he is an idiot, but a fairly innocent one. It is no huge crime, he did nothing wrong because no crime was committed.

But if he said as he handed the number over, "Call me for a good time" or something more specific - I don't know what the legal situation is in your area, but that would put a darker colour on the situation.
If he's been dropping in to visit her at work too frequently, waiting for her when she leaves, following her or attempting anything - definitely something the police would talk to him about.

Is it worth paying $20,000 blackmail to hush it up? THAT worries me a lot. What sort of guilty conscience do you have to have, to be prepared to pay that amount?

I am reminded of my good friend whose second husband began behaving oddly. Similar bits of things were not adding up, his story never fully tallied with the little scraps of conversations and other things (like bank statements).
She was a very faithful wife, but enough things happened to make her concerned so she checked up on him. At about the same time, her daughter told her that her stepfather had been molesting her and had only recently stopped.
My friend checked phone records, she checked his computer logs, she checked his bank statements. She even had him followed and what she found was ghastly. It involved young girls, often friends of her daughter as well as other young girls my friend had brought into the house as part of a course she was offering (encouraged to do so by her husband).
My friend discovered her husband was having an affair with a 15 year old she had brought into the house. She said to me, "I didn't even know you could hire motel rooms by the hour."

Her husband was very persuasive - he had my friend convinced that this was all her fault, if she hadn't been so busy with her job and the courses she was running (which he had supported, so he could get more access to young girls) then he wouldn't have been tempted.
I think what finished her was finding all the kiddie porn on his computer.

I'm not saying that your husband is anything like my friend's husband, only that this sounds like an iceberg - 70% of it is still hidden.

That $20,000 - why was he so ready to pay it? What could he be afraid of, if he's done nothing wrong (only stupid)?

I have a horrible feeling that your husband's definition of "stupid" is "getting caught".

Get legal advice. fast. Get all your vital documents copied (secretly) fast. Keep the copies away from home. Keep a small bag packed also, away from home (where he can't accidentally find it).

Check bank statements, phone records, anything else you need to. Because he's not telling you the truth.

Marg
 

WNC Gal

New Member
Thank you for all of your insight. It has helped me immensely to see the situation through unbiased eyes.

I am being very cautious and will be speaking to an attorney tomorrow as well as a counselor.

He did tell me about 10 days ago that he had met a nice young lady who was interested in babysitting and gave me her name and number because I was having difficulty lining up a sitter (our favorites have all gone away to college).

The "friend" who gave the money back I think did so out of fear that my husband would expose his blackmail attempt - it would destroy that man's career and reputation also. I believe from my research that it is STILL blackmail even if the "victim" pays the money. I have always been a bit leery of that friend because he would discuss things that weren't 100% ethical such as bypassing the law in certain situations.

My husband will be consulting an attorney tomorrow and it is someone who he knows fairly well in our small town. I asked whether he might prefer an attorney from a larger city out of town, but he said "I have nothing to hide - I did nothing wrong".

We shall see. It is frightening to wait to see if your life is going to unravel in a way you never dreamed.
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
Marg's right. Some men DO see only what they want to see and interpret things to be what they want them to be.

Something else that bothers me ... If he had truely been "stalking" this girl, if she was really an innocent victim, if she was frightened of him and had not encouraged him in any way, why would her parents not have simply called the police instead of hiring their own detective to track him down? To hire a private detective cost an enormous amount of money! If it really happened this way, it would be a matter for the police - why not just let them handle it!

And you're saying that SHE called HIM on the cell phone number he gave her? If he gave her the number with the promise of babysitting jobs, and then she called him - then she wasn't too afraid of him, was she! And if she WAS frightened of him and thought he was stalking her - why on earth would she call him!?!? I'm not sticking up for him in any way, but I am suggesting that this girl may have been far from just an innocent victim.

Another thing ... what kind of a "store" is this? Most stores, even the smaller ones, have security cameras now. If a customer had been bothering or harassing an employee, it would be caught on their cameras and the stores' security people would become involved if they were aware of it. He certainly could be identified.

None of this adds up at all. What you're being told makes no sense. It just gets "curiouser and curiouser"!
 

goldenguru

Active Member
Lots of wisdom already.

I would be checking emails, snooping through checking accounts. In fact, I would be calling some of these people involved. I would want the story from 'the horses mouth'.

Attorney would be a must.

You're being swindled ... by your own husband.
 

AllStressedOut

New Member
I'm not up to date on your story, but from what Weeping mentioned, I would get your daughter into a ob/gyn for a physical exam as well as a therapist. It won't hurt anything if she's okay, but it will get her checked out. If she was hurt by anyone, the doctors will be able to tell you.

I agree with the others above to seek counsel as well as go with husband to his attorneys office. I would want full disclosure. People can't extort $20K out of someone for speaking with a 16 year old about babysitting. If it were me, I'd be scheduling an ob/gyn appointment for myself too. Have yourself checked for STDs and don't sleep with husband until he can show you his clean bill of health as well. There is more to this story.

I'm so sorry for what you're dealing with.
 
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