I’m sure it felt cathartic at the time. An estranged husband rolled his wife’s 1990 Camaro into the Delaware River. He was frustrated that his wife had not turned the family mini-van over to him.

The funny thing about having impulse control issues is that there is a certain lack of foresight as to the consequences. For instance, there is the impact on your divorce case: destroying a marital asset such as a car will likely result in the value of the vehicle being assigned to him at equitable distribution.

Other consequences that this gentleman failed to consider would be the law enforcement response to his actions. Perhaps it did not occur to him that dumping a car in a river might be illegal and that the police have the obligation to send divers into the freezing cold, 30 foot deep water to make sure no one was in the vehicle when it went under. He might not have considered that the police consider having to deploy divers into a dangerous environment for a frivolous reason the reckless endangerment of law enforcement officers.

In his mind, however, the husband, John Kramer, didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. How do we know this? Mr. Kramer’s next move, after having had an arrest warrant issued and his actions garnering a lot more attention that he expected, was to talk to a reporter. In what is probably an interview chock full of good sound bites, the husband, John Kramer, pleads to Philadelphia CBS3’s Todd Quinones, “I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong.” He was sick of fighting over the car and really wanted to use that mini-van.

Of all of his poor decisions, however, Mr. Kramer’s greatest sin was that of pride: according to detectives interviewed by Quinones, he boasted to his wife over text that she could find her car in the river. Unfortunately for him that text violates the Protection from Abuse Order she has against him which prohibits direct and indirect contact. That text could constitute contempt of the PFA and potentially land him in jail. The PFA contempt would be a separate action from the criminal charges the police has filed against him.

Mr. Kramer’s interview made a bad situation worse by making admissions as to the commission of the act and having fled the area. He caps off his day of backfiring decision-making by then dictating through the media his conditions for turning himself in to the police (his demand: released in eight hours on an ankle monitor). This string of decisions took what may have been a frustrating and contentious divorce case and now expanded it to criminal charges, the likelihood of fines, jail time, and a worse outcome in his divorce (and, I assume, any custody case). The momentary gratification of antagonizing an estranged spouse rarely results in any long-term gain.

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Aaron Weems is an attorney and editor of the Pennsylvania Family Law Blog. Aaron is a partner in Fox Rothschild’s Blue Bell, Pennsylvania office and practices throughout the greater Philadelphia region. Aaron can be reached at 610-397-7989; aweems@foxrothschild.com, and on Twitter@AaronWeemsAtty.