Posted on 05/27/2004 10:48:37 AM PDT by Puppage
NEWARK, N.J. -- The mistress of a Port Authority officer who died in the attack on the World Trade Center is suing his widow, seeking a greater share of benefits for a child from their affair.
Officer Liam Callahan, 44, died on Sept. 11, 2001, leaving behind a wife, Joan, and four children in Rockaway Township. They would have celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary the next day.
He also left a girlfriend, Kimberly Diaz, who had just become pregnant.
Joan Callahan did not know about the affair, her lawyer said. But when a paternity test confirmed that Liam Diaz Callahan was her husband's child, she included him when applying for benefits from the government's compensation fund, according to court records.
Records show the fund would pay about $1 million on the request, with each child getting about $145,000, but Diaz claims her son should get more. The widow opposes the effort.
Diaz lawyer James Dronzek told The Star-Ledger of Newark the argument is based on how the proposed award was calculated.
The compensation fund valued Mrs. Callahan claim at $3.26 million, based on her husband's age and potential earnings. That was offset by $2.2 million the family received from life insurance and pension benefits.
Dronzek said Liam Diaz Callahan may be due some of the offsets, or may be due child support. The child does receive Social Security survivor benefits.
Callahan, a 22-year police veteran, earned about $67,000 a year, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.
Diaz, 36, said she met Callahan while she worked as a Port Authority communications agent at the Journal Square PATH station in Jersey City, and they become romantically involved in March 1999.
She is trying to get his LIFE INSURANCE. The child was not a beneficiary. I don't think she should get squat. His legal family had that insurance in case something happened to him.
$145K AND SS benefits should take care of that child.
Gotta love that knee jerk blaming the wife.
Some men are just creeps, and would cheat no matter what. (The same goes for women, but we are talking about a man, here.)
So is the rest of America (it is cheap to get term life insurance if you are young and healthy).
But these 9/11 families think millions in free government money just ain't good enough.
I agree. It seems that the advent of DNA testing has made it easier for a woman having an adulterous affair with a married man to undermine the rights of his legal wife and children. I thought that marriage was a legal framework of protection for a woman and her children.
This woman should be granted nothing from the estate of the sperm donor. The estate should pass to the legal widow and legal children of the deceased.
I hope the widow and her children prevail.
Sorry, but only two words come to mind. "meal ticket"
If I had been the lover of someone who died subsequent to the 09/11 terrorist attack, there is no way in hell I'd drag their name through the mud for a meal ticket. I would move heaven and earth to take on the responsibility I had assumed in the first place, and leave that person's name and family in tact.
This guy really picked a gem to mess around with.
I blame all three of the adults. Most of all Mr. Callahan, then Ms. Diaz. He was pretty much of a cad stepping out on a wife of 20 years. Can't believe she didn't know after over 2 years.
Must of been some kind of "gem" he may have fathered 2 children by her in a little over 2 years.
"Hi, Honey, I'm home! Guess what, I brought us home a new wife. You don't like the idea? Well, you could always get a divorce, but that'd mean dividing up our assets THREE ways."
That's what is happening here--a widow is being dragged into court to divide up her property among her husband's paramours. This widow is no longer THE wife, but only the first wife. Like the Muslims, all we have to do is repudiate the place of the first wife to make way for the second. Unlike the Muslims, it won't stop legally at four. Think this will be a good deal for your daughter? Either marriage means a thing, or it means nothing.
She is gold digging and trying to 'get something out of this'
I like your thinking. I agree totally.
Good thing you don't jump to conclusions.
>I say the child should receive $145k plus whatever the appropriate support amount might be.
I'm not a lawyer (but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night), so I don't know if there is any case law that takes a wife's estate, from her late husband, and hands it over to an illigetimate child.
How can the wife of a cheating spouse be forced to pay child support for his bastard?
You have no basis for making that statement.
Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI) provides GIs with up to $250,000, depending upon what they select. Most folks I know have the full 250K.
One thing that's puzzled me. Didn't those who died in the 9-11 attacks already have insurance policies with the companies they worked for? Seems to me that if that was so, the insurance companies, not the taxpayers, should be the ones making compensation. Am I missing something?
I am entitled to state my opinion on the matter. If proof comes out that she acted solely without legal council then bring it on.
THE CASH COW came to light on 911. If Liam had died in a car crash would her reactions have been the same?
Think about it.
Also read throught the whole thread before jumping on my post number 3 THANKS : )
Rant your illogical rant if you like. You have no basis for that accusation.
How many abortions per year? Need I have to remind you? And I am the illogical one.....the odds that Diaz would have had this baby with an affair going on with a married man with 4 kids already ....unlikely..and oh yeah he was richly making 67 K in NYC area...hardly a catch....
Logic would admit that had 911 not become a cash cow...(think back to the millions upon millions of donations that poured in immediate) that Diaz may have kept her shame to herself.....
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