You Spy, Caught on Tape Part 2
Some leave the spying to the professionals

hen he started his full-service investigative security business after 20 years as a New York City detective, Jerry Palace didn’t think he would be spending his days making sure spouses were staying true to their wedding vows.

"One thing led to another, and there was a market for it," he says. "And you go where the market is."

In 1987 Palace started Check-A-Mate, a business that charges $200 an hour to follow and gather evidence against suspected cheats. Most of the surveillance work is done by video according to Palace. In the case of a suspected repeat cheater, the service sometimes uses decoys—women who approach a customer’s husband to gauge his reaction to a come-on. Palace says that spouses caught in the past usually swear "up and down" that they won’t do it again.

"But in most cases," he says, "they still take it [the bait]."

is customers are mostly women, he says, although the number of men seeking out his service has been on the rise.

"It becomes a macho thing for men sometimes when they don’t want to admit to having a problem in their relationship," he adds.

By the time a spouse seeks out his service, Palace says, they are pretty sure of what is happening. With decades of experience seeing the shadier sides of couplehood, he says he is amazed sometimes by what people will put themselves through in the course of a relationship. He doesn’t necessarily think the increased use of technology is going to make proving an affair any easier.

"DNA stuff can be set up too," he says. "What’s to say someone wouldn’t throw some semen into somebody’s underwear and make believe like something happened. You never know what people are capable of."

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Part 1

True Confessions
From Cheaters