I have been divorced for 8.5 years. My ex husband and I have one child together who is now 10 yrs old. We currently have equal 50/50 joint c...

Question

I have been divorced for 8.5 years. My ex husband and I have one child together who is now 10 yrs old. We currently have equal 50/50 joint custody. He has asked for full custody and I am refusing because my child doesn't want it. My ex husband has photographs of me of an adult nature taken back when we were legally married to eachother. He has threatened to send these pictures to my family, expose them publically (we live in a small town) and use them against me in court to gain custody of our child, he has threatened to claim that they are more recent and say that I'm an unfit mother because of the nature of these pictures. My children, including the one we have together have NEVER been exposed to any adult behavior and like I said, those pictures were taken about 11 years ago, some even earlier than that. Is this legally considered blackmail? Is he committing a crime, and if so what if anything can I do about it?

Answer

You should get a lawyer first of all. Also, do you have any proof he's blackmailing you? Correspondence or tape recordings of your conversations?

Those photos likely won't be admissible anyway, even if they were recent. Unless the child has actually been exposed to any sort of inappropriate behavior, it isn't relevant.