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Emil Protalinski
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Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest

By | March 18, 2011, 11:36am PDT

Summary: An investigation leading to the arrest of an alleged bigamist all began with a few wedding photos on Facebook.

Police in Michigan have arrested 34-year-old Richard Leon Barton Jr. on charges of polygamy, thanks to incriminating wedding photos on Facebook. The man unfriended his first wife on the social network before marrying his second wife, but unsurprisingly that wasn’t enough, according to Mlive.

In 2004, Barton reportedly married a Rhode Island woman, whom he’d met about a year earlier online. Not long after their wedding, Barton mysteriously removed his new bride from his Facebook account, and then vanished from her life altogether (he simply did not return home from work one day). Prior to his disappearance, the two discussed getting a divorce by letter and later by phone, but neither ever filed the requisite paperwork.

Out of curiosity, the abandoned woman decided to do some stalking on Facebook, where she soon discovered photos from Barton’s second wedding in July 2010 on the pages of his friends and family. The Rhode Island woman contacted police, who arrested the alleged bigamist.

It turns out Barton originally disappeared because he’d been arrested for violating his parole (in 2000 he was convicted of home invasion and in 2001 for uttering and publishing) by leaving Rhode Island, and was sent back to jail. He was released in October 2009, and eventually moved to Grand Rapids, where he met his second wife, whom he told he was divorced.

Muskegon District Court arraigned Barton and charged him with polygamy, which has a maximum penalty of four years in the state of Michigan. He could receive a heavier sentence because he has a criminal record. If he ends up back in jail, he’ll have plenty of time to think about changing his Facebook privacy settings, and how to convince his friends and family to do the same.

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Facebook, Rhode Island, Photograph, Emil Protalinski

Emil Protalinski has covered the tech industry for five years for multiple publications.

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Emil Protalinski

Emil has nothing to disclose.

Biography

Emil Protalinski

Emil Protalinski has covered the tech industry for five years for multiple publications, including Neowin for two years and Ars Technica for three years. He has written 1,000s of articles for both, with a particular focus on scrutinizing Microsoft products and services. Recently, Emil has expanded his coverage to non-Microsoft technologies, including the social networking giant Facebook.

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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
jefferyshall 22nd Nov
@wackoae
You nailed it, Facebook wasn't even public until 2006. Sommmeoooone's lying.
View in thread
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Where the hell is the crime?
wackoae Updated - 18th Mar 2011
Not to defend the scumbag, but where is the crime? The marriage was technically terminated do to abandonment and at no point do I see anything that says that he scammed either woman.

He wasn't living a double life (he was in jail) and after so many years it is very likely he thought he was legally divorced but never got the documents.

Now one thing I don't understand about the story (which makes it very suspicious) is if he "disappeared" in 2004, how the hell was his wife a "friend" in his Facebook account?
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You don't have to be a friend...
jasonp@... 18th Mar 2011
@wackoae
if a user doesn't have any privacy settings turned on. She probably did a search for his name and found his Facebook account. The crime is that it's illegal to be married to more than one person at a time in this country.
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Making bigamy a criminal offense is just ridiculous...
Snooki_smoosh_smoosh 15th Jul
@jasonp@... IT is one of those areas where we legislate morality... The government has no reason to legislate what goes on in the private lives of people or in their bedroom.

I am not saying that I support plural marriage, but what I am saying it isn't anyone's business either, but like the other user said, He basically abandoned the one wife, for the other, not like he was playing them both along...
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
balsover 17th Jul
@Snooki_smoosh_smoosh@... Nobody's business? I think that it was the first wife's business as she was still married to him and she was the one that reported him.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
hoaxoner 18th Mar 2011
@wackoae
I agree with you 100%. There is no crime here, except maybe the violation of parole.

As to that last point, was he a Harvard student at the time?
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
Katydidknot 18th Mar 2011
@wackoae
"Technically terminated do [sic] to abandonment"? Is there a state where abandoning one's spouse terminates the marriage? I've certainly never heard of that.

In most (all) states, in order to end a marriage, there is a little-known legal process called "divorce". A divorce should usually happen between two marriages, or else someone might be called a bigamist, which is what happened here.

Nobody cares, typically, about bigamy unless someone is a jerk about it. Which this guy kinda was.
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No termination due to abandonment
Rick_R Updated - 18th Mar 2011
@wackoae
I'm a lawyer. A marriage doesn't terminate by abandonment. The only way to have a marriage "naturally" terminate is for one of the people to die. Abandonment is grounds for divorce, but it doesn't terminate the marriage.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
jefferyshall 22nd Nov
@wackoae
You nailed it, Facebook wasn't even public until 2006. Sommmeoooone's lying.
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I love stupid criminal stories
MC_z 18th Mar 2011
Usually it's a story about a burglar stuck in a chimney. This is a fresh take on dumbassery.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
psquared007 18th Mar 2011
@MC_z Thanks for the laugh. I really like that snigglet, "dumbassery". May I use it...alot? : )
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Being put away for four years for having more than one wife....
Userama 18th Mar 2011
could be considered a "vacation", couldn't it?
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
rgcustomer@... 18th Mar 2011
I think polygamy should be permitted, provided no other laws (abuse, etc.) are being broken.

However, I would describe this more as a straightforward case of fraud. It appears the wives did not know of each other. A person show know what they are getting into. And a spouse's explicit consent should be required if the fundamentals of the relationship are changing that significantly.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
Arpotu 20th Mar 2011
The guy goes to jail for like 6 years and she never visits him - once? Sounds like she thought they were divorced as well.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
BreadintheBone 22nd Mar 2011
@Arpotu - You must have missed this part:
"Not long after their wedding, Barton mysteriously removed his new bride from his Facebook account, and then vanished from her life altogether (he simply did not return home from work one day)."
Also, being married has legal implications and responsibilities. Just as one example, if he had died without making a will, his first wife would inherit, since he was never divorced. Assuming there was anything to inherit, of course.
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Arresting someone just to arrest them
Omnifarious Updated - 20th Mar 2011
This really looks like a case of "Oh, he's been in the criminal justice system before. We don't like him much, lets get him for bigamy this time."

I mean seriously, it wasn't like he removed one wife from his Facebook page them a few days later married a different one. There was years in between here. I could see him having simply forgotten that he hadn't gotten a divorce. After all, having to spend time in jail is a pretty big life change and is rather distracting.

What did she think she could accomplish by calling the police on him anyway? Seems like a revenge move, a way to use the legal system to punish someone for a personal dispute. Would she have wanted to continue the marriage if she hadn't discovered he was married, or would she have found some other pretext to call the police on him?

This is dumb.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
raydillon417 20th Mar 2011
@Omnifarious Sadly, that is exactly the way our justice system works in this country. There is a lot of money that changes hands for every criminal in the system and they seem to love repeat offenders. Careers depend on the system having criminals.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
crimsonrosella 20th Mar 2011
@Omnifarious, what's dumb here is your apparent belief that marriage is such a trivial thing that a) people can forget they are married and b) they should be allowed to get married as many times as they please. Actually marriage is about the most powerful contract you can enter, and what was 'accomplished' here was saving the deceived bride (whom I notice you care nothing about) from a liar and probably an untold amount of grief and debts. It's none of your business as to why the real wife hasn't petitioned for divorce and it doesn't make her the villain in this piece.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
Omnifarious Updated - 21st Mar 2011
@crimsonrosella - Apparently, marriage was pretty trivial to her. How could she have not discovered he was in jail? All she would've had to do was go to the police and file a missing person's report. That's 5-6 years of someone being completely missing from your life where you don't even make a basic attempt to look for them.

And marriage isn't trivial. But after 4-5 years in jail I'm going to be a little hazy on whether or not I actually got divorced from someone who I had been talking about it with before I went to jail, especially if they never visited me while I was there.

I don't think there's any villain here but a stupid system. I suspect both he and she are not particularly pleasant people. The system has given her a tool, and hasn't given him one. And she's using it. The tool shouldn't have been there in the first place.
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your right it is a contract, so at most he breached a
Snooki_smoosh_smoosh 15th Jul
@crimsonrosella... a contract, but does that mean we have to pay his support costs while he spends the next 4+ years in prison? Keep in mind that it costs a lot of money to maintain a prisoner. One of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
geddawfmylawn 20th Mar 2011
What on earth is "uttering and publishing" (for which this guy was convicted in 2001)? Yikes!
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
Omnifarious 21st Mar 2011
@geddawfmylawn - "uttering and publishing" is basically using forged documents in some way. I had to look it up using Google. It has such a weird name because the name of the offense has its roots in English common law.

I suspect one of the reasons the police were only too happy to slap him with a 'bigamy' charge is that it's in the same class of offense. Essentially doing something deceptive and possibly fraudulent.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
iiiears@... 21st Mar 2011
@geddawfmylawn
www.attorneywebsite.com/uttering_publishing.htm
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
jeh_it Updated - 21st Mar 2011
@geddawfmylawn
"Uttering and publishing" is forging and/or using counterfeits of official documents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttering
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
Hraefn 21st Mar 2011
So why is it illegal to marry more than one wife? In a society that won't even forbid marriage between two men or two women, why is the law concerned over a person having more than one spouse? Shouldn't that be a private matter between the people involved? This whole story sounds laughable.
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Why oh why do we need to legislate what people do
Snooki_smoosh_smoosh 15th Jul
@Hraefn... in there bedrooms? Oh that's right to protect certain religions. It gets too confusing for those of certain dogma's to explain to their children that what other do in their own homes is none of their children's business...

Marriage is nothing more than a contract to the state, and to churches is a matter of spiritualism. People should be able to negotiate their own marriage contracts with whom ever they choose, and modify those contracts at any time, and they can certainly put in terms that dictate what will happen should one party or the other breaches that contract.

This whole idea of legislating morality is ridiculous.
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But he unfriended her
looskeelooa@... 21st Mar 2011
I don't get it, he did unfriend his first wife. I thought that was the equivalent of a divorce in all 50 states but I guess that MI is still in the dark (pre-Facebook) ages so it just sucks being him.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
ggheorghiu@... 22nd Mar 2011
sfsgsg
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
ggheorghiu@... 22nd Mar 2011
trhfh
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Re: Facebook
zdnet@... 23rd Mar 2011
The gossip-monger of the Internet. The cyber check-out operator or cyber hair-salonist (in common humorous myth).
We have to ask, if social networking is a good thing, when it has been learned over the years that mankind develops a group mentality in numbers, which effectively lowers the intelligence level to the lowest common denominator. Not unlike vacuous blogs, which toss a snippet of "spin" into the air, to watch "those given to unproductive activity" gore it.
It's become "the talkback radio for the computer user". Yes people have an opinion, but is it truly worth the time, space and job-description to put it up in lights? Half the time, it just becomes another bright idea for some dim-witted person to emulate.
There is much that is better left unsaid. If something is going to be said, then why not make it something that adds to our society, engages the mind or improves the planet/world.
At least when you get home from a drinking session with your mates, you can say to your partner; "Gosh I/you/he talk a lot of crap" and forget about it.
Hermit typing is oratory for the mute (which technically is a good thing, as mute is not dumb), but it leaves those who only say Mmm, with a blank slate upon which to scribble. It is the child's bedroom wallpaper of the 21st Century!
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
totaljunk1234567 23rd Mar 2011
Well, if the first wife was still technically married to him and he married someone else without a proper legal divorce, then she is in a very bad position - isn't she? Now if she wants to marry someone else, technically, she would also be a polygamist. Who knows how many other legal difficulties this could create for her down the road. And none of it was her fault regardless of if they didn't communicate for a number of years.

She actually had an obligation to set the record straight to protect herself and her future. The idea that someone "forgot" if they were divorced is absurd and doesn't need to be discussed further. That's like stealing a car from somewhere and saying they forget which car was theirs. I very hardly doubt the polygamist will ever bother claiming he forget they were divorced even in court (it's that absurb really)...

It's an ugly situation but the first wife was innocent here and the record needs to set straight legally for her due to her husband breaking the law and becoming a polygamist. She clearly did the correct thing.

I actually feel sad for both of them for very different reasons.
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RE: Facebook wedding photos result in polygamy arrest
doveuvpeace 15th Aug
For all you polygamy fans out there, good luck finding a wife that agrees with you. LOL
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Ignorance of the law...
RealGem 30th Aug
Thinking you're divorced doesn't make you divorced. I don't buy the ignorance excuse (oh, I just thought divorce was automatic), although I have to admit that there does appear to be a lot of ignorance involved.

Polygamy is an important law, but only because it levels off everyone's expectations. Honestly, if everyone is a consenting adult and they know what they're getting into (e.g. a one-third share of assets upon divorce instead of one-half), then that's great. To continue my example, though, a second marriage will reduce the "share" of the marriage that the first spouse has. Imagine that you and your wife have the house paid off and it's worth $300k. Your wife takes a second husband. Instead of your share of the house asset being $150k, it's now $100k just like that? How would you feel about that? Anyway, this is just one of the reasons why it's so complex. Polygamy would turn marriages into something more like business parterships.

But, monogamy is a deep-seated biblical and social "law" and it would be extremely difficult to change. Especially since when polygamy makes the news, it always seems to be about some leader of an obscure religious sect who has been taking child brides.
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