A private investigator who was hired to see if a woman was cheating with her boss is being sued after the woman found a GPS tracker on her car.
Melissa Atkins told Channel 2 Action News that she discovered the device when she hit a bump with her SUV.
“I thought it was a bomb,” she said of the small box with wires hanging from it.
Atkins, who is in the middle of a divorce, is suing the private investigator, saying it’s an invasion of privacy.
“I felt so invaded, that somebody could watch everywhere I was at all times,” she told the news station, “and I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t see them. They were behind a computer.”
Atkins’ attorney, Chuck Backman, said he’s shocked a private investigator used the device to follow his client.
“Tracking someone with a GPS tracking device violates somebody’s right to privacy,” he said.
Backman told Channel 2 that surveillance footage shows Atkins leaving her SUV with her daughter the day the device was placed on her car.
Atkins is seeking damages for emotional duress, the news station reported.
But the private investigator’s attorney, W. Bryant Green III, said Atkins may not have a case since cars are already tracked by their own navigation systems and are on public roadways.
“This is a tool private investigators, working in the context of a divorce, can use if something like adultery is suspected,” he told Channel 2. “There’s nothing illegal or immoral about it.”
