Posted on 03/25/2013 11:45:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
The feminists have ratcheted up the laws against men to such an outrageous level that paternity fraud is not just ignored, but routinely rubber stamped by the courts. Whether one agrees with the concept of child support or not, virtually everyone can agree that jailing men for child support over children who are not theirs is morally wrong. Men are routinely sent to jail for falling behind on paying child support, even though debtors' prisons in the U.S. were mostly eliminated in the mid-nineteenth century.
The family courts and laws are set up in such a way that makes it very easy for a mother to collect child support, and very difficult for a man to avoid it. If a couple was married, the default law is that the man will be required to pay child support for any child born while they were married. In order for a man who isn't the father to escape this outcome, he must obtain a paternity test and take a series of legal steps in court. Most states only allow a short window of time for a man to do this. If a man is not aware of the child, which he may not be if his wife or former wife doesn't notify him of the child right away, he loses all chance to fight the child support, and will be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars for the next 18 years until the child becomes an adult.
Courts routinely order these judgments even if the man is unaware what is going on. A March 2003 Urban Institute study commissioned by the California Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) found that "most noncustodial parents appear to be served by 'substitute' service, rather than personal service, which suggests that noncustodial parents may not know that they have been served."
Judges and prosecutors are fully aware of the DNA tests exonerating these men, but still rule against them. They hold men to super high technical standards that are not equally applied against women. Women can make all kinds of mistakes in court obtaining child support, and the courts will look the other way or help them. Men are not treated equally. Many fathers who find themselves in this situation are not wealthy, connected, or familiar with the law. I am an attorney and still have a difficult time figuring out how to file things correctly in family court.
An honest woman would never force a man to give her money for a child that was not his, but the family law system has been set up by feminists to punish men and make women feel good about taking child support from them.
Leigh Adelmann, a father of four from Arizona, remarried a few years ago. His second wife was three months pregnant. After being briefly married, his second wife moved out, telling him she needed space to think. She moved back in when she was eight months pregnant and had the baby. After giving birth, she left again, and filed for divorce three years later. The entire time, Leigh thought the child was his. She listed him as the father on the birth certificate. In 2010, she confessed to Leigh that the child was not his. She moved to Missouri and obtained an order for monthly child support of $910 from Leigh.
Leigh's first ex-wife, who makes a six-figure income and is remarried, insisted on receiving $2,000 each month in child support for their children, even though they both share custody of their children. Default child support orders assume that fathers are working full-time at minimum wage pay level or above. In reality, state audits reveal that 80 percent of default dads don't even make that. Leigh is a self-employed contractor in the construction business, and when the economy went sour, he got behind on child support to the two women. By the time all the child support and arrears had amassed last year, he was required to pay $4,800 monthly in child support to the two women. The absurdity of this can be seen when contrasted with the average income in Arizona, which is only $2,140 per month.
On October 25, 2012, Leigh was arrested for a warrant out of Missouri for failure to pay child support, and extradited by law enforcement to a jail in Missouri. His second ex-wife had applied for welfare in Missouri, and in return the state issued warrants for Leigh and her first ex-husband, who was also behind in child support. This was strange since it is virtually unheard of for a state to extradite anyone but the most violent criminals from other states. Usually a perpetrator must have committed a serious felony for a state to spend all the money to transport and house him. Even more bizarre was that both the courts and prosecutors in Missouri and Arizona were well aware that the child was not Leigh's, because I filed briefs on his behalf in both courts and informed them. Leigh recently found from the Arizona court that it is too late for him to dispute paternity.
After three months in the Missouri jail, Leigh was released. He is trying desperately to keep up with the child support payments (and last week was able to get the child support order to his first ex-wife reduced), but is terrified he will not be able to keep up and the Missouri court will throw him back in jail. His friends set up a website to raise money for Leigh's legal defense at freeleigh.weebly.com.
It is astonishing that women can force child support from their innocent ex-husbands without a conscience. Those children will suffer emotional damage growing up knowing they've been used as a tool of revenge to hurt someone. It risks giving sons a low view of women, possibly turning them into women-hating misogynists. Leigh's ex-wife could easily remove his name from the birth certificate and end all of this.
One childless friend of mine did not find out from his ex-wife until a year after her child was born that she was pregnant. By then, it was too late to object to child support in court. He was required to pay child support until the child had grown up, even though he had no interaction with her.
Brandon Parsons, a Marine who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, is forced to pay one-third of his salary to his ex-wife for another man's child. The court refused to reconsider the order because Brandon did not file the paternity legal pleadings with the court until two years after the child was born.
Even if the courts rule in a man's favor, the state may still come after him for unpaid child support. A court in Maine ruled that Geoffrey Fisher no longer had to pay child support for a child that was not his. However, the state revoked his driver's license and came after him for $11,450 in child support. When a man gets behind in child support, the state may cut off any of his licenses, including any professional licenses he may need to earn a living like teaching credentials and state bar memberships.
The tide is slowly turning in some places. Some states have passed paternity fraud legislation, although most of the laws are too weak to make much of a difference. In 2004, the California Court of Appeals ruled in County of Los Angeles v. Navarro that a six month statute of limitations did not apply to set aside an old default judgment against a paternity fraud victim. Some fathers are obtaining justice by suing for damages, instead of trying to retroactively modify paternity and child support. In Tennessee, a court awarded damages in Hodge v. Craig to a man equal to the child support he'd paid over the past 15 years, under the common law remedy of intentional misrepresentation. Richard Rodwell, a British man whose wife fooled him into thinking children she had through affairs were his, was awarded $40,000 in damages in February from a lawsuit he filed against her.
These were the few fortunate men who had the resources to fight the system. In order to try and achieve justice, it requires a lot of money, time and perseverance by paternity fraud victims to maneuver the complex court system which is biased towards mothers. This situation can be fixed by holding the biological father responsible for child support, not the innocent man dragged into this by a greedy and ruthless ex-wife. Right now women are not prosecuted for paternity fraud. They should be, because it would stop a lot of the bad behavior.
It is brutally unfair as well as sexist towards men, that a mother can decide she does not want a child, and abort the child or place it after being born at a fire station, deserting the child with no consequences. She will never be required to pay child support. A man does not have that option. He cannot even stop the child from being aborted. It takes two people to have sex. Both should be treated equally under the law, instead of forcing men to act as a welfare system for women.
It’s 73% in the black community.
Two words: postnuptial agreement. Of course, since you are already married, this may require some couples counseling.
Hardly News. I had to check the date of the article to see if it was 2013, 2003 or even 1993.
This has been happening for years.
I blame the men. Women are more sexually active now there’s no assurance they’ll be faithful men know this. Why sign a birth certificate first before getting a dna test.
Trust but verify.
she doesn't have to buck it, just meet a man with $$$ and tell him her doctor said she is incapable of conception. (can claim she had a hysterectomy). Then she announces a miracle has taken place, she will be a mom again. Her prayers have been answered. Then she goes to family court again to get her 21 year award $$$$$ for sleeping around.
Then find another, and another. family values..
One might come to such a foolish understanding based on the disastrous results of divorce.
But looking at the overall economic and societal benefits of marriage - we can only agree that state-sponsored marriage is the only way to go.
You want to end welfare in one generation? Require all welfare recipients to be married.
You want to end poverty and ignorance in America? Extend tax BREAKS not penalties to married couples.
You want to gut and put an end to divorce courts that are churning out millions of children from broken homes who have half the advantages of normal children? Slap a big tax/penalty on divorce.
You want a hundred more reasons why the government should favor marriage? I got ‘em.
That and FALSE ARREST.
I was arrested after my ex accused me of hitting her- THANK GOD I was able to prove I was not even home at the time (I was actually in my attorney’s office, on the phone with the judge setting up a court date- there was no question in his mind I was inocent)
But that was a pre-trial judge- when we went before the real judge she CONTINUED to use the fact that I was arrested but she “dropped the charges to be nice”
I was forced to file charges against her so I could get my day in court to prove my innocence- but the prosecutre at first refused to prosecute because “You’re just doing this to get back at her”
I demanded that he prosecute and had the foresight to contact an attorney and told him I would be in court filing a ‘writ of mandamus’ the minute I walked out his door if he didn’t.
End result? They postponed the trial for one month, and the NEXT WEEK when I was not even present they offerred her a 6 month ACD (adjournment contemplating dismissal) if she didnt do it again for 6 months.
I was FURIOUS. I lost my job and was forced out of my $300,000 home that had to be sold at foreclosure... She cost me $100,000 as certainly as if she had taken it from my bank account- and NOTHING happened to her.
After she was killed in a car accident (I swear I was home with the kids!) I found websites on her computer DEDICATED to framing men during a divorce. One title page was “So, now he’s in jail- what next?”
And then women wonder why men are afraid to marry now?
Just find a woman you hate and buy her a house- you will be better off.
Charlie Sheen once said, “I don’t pay them to come over and have sex with me. I pay them to leave when they are done.”
No sex before marriage. It’s just not a luxury most people can afford anymore.
I disagree. Religious marriage means something to people and results in all the benefits you mention.
State sanctioned mariage is next to meaningless to most people.
This story sounds bogus to me. No way any court would force someone to support someone not related to or adopted by him.
When a kid is born, spend a few extra bucks to get a dna test done. Trust but verify.
For instance, my business partner found out just before his dad died that his brother and sister were children of another man by his cheating mother.
Don't go into a courtroom looking for justice - all you will find there is the law.
The way it works is that if the kid is born within 9 or 10 months since the break-up between Sheila and Brian, the law's first guess is that the kid is Brian's. They WERE married, you see? Further confusing the situation, is the occasional "be-back" Brian succumbed to at the warm invite of Sheila. ("Now why would she do that," you ask?)
Of course, all of this was legally decided long before DNA and such. So, Brian now has to scientifically prove that said progeny is someone else's problem. This may, or may not, convince the court because since then, Brian has been tagged with "domestic violence," "sexual abuse of a minor child," "Littering, Treason, and Lèse Majesté" and a host of lesser charges which seem to endlessly spring to the lips of lesbolawyers.
The default position of society? Well, Leroy, Daunté, and Shaquil have your answer. Have 30 forty children by 20-30 different women and let the courts and the welfare department handle the whole thing. O yeah, don't forget to register and vote early, often, and wherever you're told.
i meant all the ways she can use the system to get “free” money on top of child support. food stamps, WIC, housing assitance, cash assitance, heating credits, EIC, SSI, medicare, free day care, working for cash..
another good scam is to get multiple fathers.. tell one if he pays cash right to her, she won’t have the state come after him. then she can get more from having the state go after a different guy for a different kid..
State sanctioned mariage is next to meaningless to most people.
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I think we should try it. You want welfare? You want your Earned Income Tax Credits? Then show me your marriage license.
Instead of rewarding the providers (married folks), we punish them as we reward the takers (divorced or never married with children)
Does this make sense to you?
Boy are you naive. This has happened to thousands of men.
Why should a man be punished with a baby for 18 years? Doesn’t he have the SAME choice as a woman? Doesn’t the woman have a CHOICE in her partner(s)?
Oh to be empowered. Meanwhile as a single man with no kids, I still have to jump through hoops at the DMV to “prove” that I do not owe any back child support in order to procure/renew a driver’s license.
Guilty first, prove your innocence.
Please understand the law here in NY:
If a man has sex with a woman, she is entitled to half of his assets, and also half of his earnings for the rest of his life.
No. Not in the least. You cannot manipulate people’s hearts with tax benefits.
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