Family Court Reports

A Trout Creek woman who allegedly stole $52,623 from the Delaware
County Department of Social Services Child Support Unit was fired from
her position in January, DSS Commissioner William Moon said Friday.

The story doesn't end with this Trout Creek woman stealing the money. Who is going to pay back the children and the taxpayers? Inadequate supervision is what we have been saying all the long. Again, what is Congress doing to tie up the State's lack of professionalism in operating programs where they claim to be helping needy families, while stealing the money out from underneath them. This particular investigation took over 4 years to detect the outright theft.

State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli released an audit Friday
indicating that the Delaware County Child Support Collection Unit lost
$52,623 from 2003 to 2007.

The audit, requested by Northrup, also found that there was
inadequate supervision of personnel responsible for collecting and
depositing child support funds.

Taxpayers are currently footing the bill, largely for their
government to collect and process child support payments for middle and
upper class families. Actual needy families appear to be the minority
of collections through the Federal Title IV-D program.

Again, we need Congress to install more accountability into the Title IV-D program or add eligibility requirements to shrink down the size of these programs so that State Directors can better control their own employees. Don't be fooled by the best interest joke, that involves high paid government officials lining their own pockets at the expense of family and parent/child relationships.

No less than one hundred news reports, not including blogger redistribution, report that Anne Heche has run out of money and can't pay her $14798.00 monthly payments. After a review of the legal documents it would appear that her former husband under Case No. BD 459 638 filed an Ex Parte Petition and Order to Show Cause against Anne Heche. A copy of the order after the ex parte hearing is found here.(31 pages)

A judge ruled she would not have to pay the July payment to ex-husband
Coley Laffoon, but Superior Court Judge Gail Ruderman Feuer ordered her
to provide updated income and expense information as soon as she had it.

Most individuals faced with such circumstances would be accused of not prioritizing their income correctly. However she has received a lucky break when it comes to the draconian family court system.

She adds in the court papers: “I do receive some residuals from previous acting work. However, the amounts are nominal and are offset by recurring business expenses that must be paid whether or not I am working.”

Amazingly, most average people wish they could get a temporary break from spousal or child support as a result of their unemployment. Often times regular folks are running into obstacles from judges and child support enforcement angencies, anxious to keep enforcement actions pending against individuals in an effort to continue revenue for the local and state government flooding in from the federal government. For every enforcement action taken against a debtor that costs a dollar, two more federal dollars stream in from the federal government.

A judge on Wednesday gave her a temporary break, saying she didn't have to pay her next support payment to her ex-husband Coley Laffoon, 34, covering the month of July. But Superior Court Judge Gail Ruderman Feuer ordered the actress to provide updated income and expense information, People reported.

The entire docket in the case is available online through the County of Los Angeles Online Civil Docket application.

Case Number: BD459638
COLEMAN LAFFOON VS ANNE HECHE

Filing Date: 02/01/2007
Case Type: Dissolution of Marriage (General Jurisdiction)
Status: Pending

05/21/2008 at 08:30 AM in department CE67 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
OSC-Modification

07/02/2008 at 08:30 AM in department CE67 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
OSC-Modification

Parties

HECHE ANNE - Respondent

JAFFE DANIEL JAY - Attorney for Respondent

LAFFOON COLEMAN - Petitioner

SUMMERS JON SAMUEL - Attorney for Petitioner

This case will prove to be interesting and a great example of what type of conflicts continue to congest our legal system. These family court cases flood our courtrooms by allowing parties to continue fighting over money, children, and property. Our current adversarial system makes little sense because the fights are typically over the same thing that led to the initial dissolution.

The Jackson Citizen Patriot, April 19, 2008 published a story called "Hunt for deadbeats is on in Jackson" but it raised some interesting points. First off, I added commentary to the online edition:

The Counties have a good thing going with wasting local, state, and federal taxpayer monies on these programs.

In 2006, the 1.399 BILLION that was collected in child support only around 36 MILLION of that went to actual means tested needy families. Did I forget to mention that around 56 MILLION was undistributed and got to be escheated back into the budget?

It is important to note that 88% of the collections for this program are people that are not means tested and only around 3% of the total collections brought in are for individual families on TANF, meaning signed up and qualified for welfare. The program is bloated and focuses on collection from middle and upper class families who should not be in the program at all. It is taxpayer waste.

For every dollar spent on creating broken homes under the guise of the best interest of children, two more federal dollars come into the state. It is like a giant slot machine that ALWAYS pays out for the state. This is done without actual accounting of the program funds, the actual expenditures by the families, and otherwise just designed to fund a growing bureaucracy based upon a largely emotional argument with adverse results to the public good.

Let's start with taking people out of the program and only providing services to means tested needy families. Let's start by mandating equal custody when there are two fit, willing, and caring parents that just don't want to be together anymore. Just by doing these things, our courts will be freed up to focus on important matters that need their attention, like actual abuse cases, neglect cases, and criminal cases.

Taxpayers should be smarter than this. Be Bold, Be Concerned, Be a Citizen.

But here is where the proof is in the pudding:

More than half the money involved in 2007 that was "owed" to parents was forgiven by them, again demonstrating that many individuals involved in the program don't want to be, or otherwise shouldn't be in the program at taxpayer expense.

Last year, they arrested 244 people and resolved about $259,952 of child-support debt. About $120,000 of that was paid to custodial parents. Mothers or fathers forgave the remaining $139,815.

This year about 2/3 of the money that was owed was also forgiven this year as a result of the local county crackdown.

Since January, Finco and deputies have arrested at least 80 people on random weekend nights, times when parents don't expect they'll be caught. In doing so, they collected $38,731 for parents and their children and resolved another $77,786 when custodial parents forgave debt owed by arrested parents.

Adding more ammunition to the arsenal of reasons that eligibility requirements should be added to the child support enforcement program instead of allowing the State and Counties to artificially increase the participation levels with "all" divorces, child custody, and paternity cases at taxpayer expense.

The Nationwide Blueprint for Title IV-D Reform

• Social Security, Welfare, and Child Support Enforcement
• Necessary Program Changes: Protecting Taxpayers, Parents, and Children
• Supporting Budget Cuts

In yet another recent case of Paternity Fraud, there is a clear message being presented. Commit Paternity Fraud or cause cases of Mistaken Paternity and face paying back all the child support money. In an Augusta, Georgia child support case a judgment was levied against a biological mom and a biological dad, from a falsely accused putative father.

Judge David Roper said he felt badly for Kenneth Samuels when he learned the child he had fathered for 11 years wasn't his.

Justice was also shortchanged, the judge said, because Mr. Samuels had been paying child support all of those years.

Last month, Judge Roper ruled that Jamie Hope, the child's mother,
and Oba Wallace, the child's biological father, would have to repay Mr.
Samuels $14,460 in child support he had paid since 1997.

Such an order is unusual, but not unique.

The judge also made sure that the biological father was truly on the hook for the repayment to Mr. Samuels. Once the biological father established paternity, the Judge ruled that it could establish an order back to birth, in this case resulting in repayment back to the alleged father.

"You swore that he was the father when you took out a child support action," Judge Roper told Ms. Hope. He said he considered that action fraudulent and ordered Ms. Hope to repay Mr. Samuels the $14,460 he had paid in child support payments.

In February, Judge Roper ruled Mr. Wallace was liable to Mr. Samuels for the back child support, too. Judge Roper said in explaining his ruling that once paternity is established, a father can be required to
pay back support to the time of birth. Since Mr. Wallace's paternity was established, he was responsible for the child support since the birth in 1997, and responsible for repaying Mr. Samuels.

Be sure to look this judge up and send him a thank you for ensuring that biological parents are the ones that are responsible for their own children not innocent third-parties. In a time where women are having multiple sexual relationships at the same time, they should strongly be encouraged that if you name the wrong man a child's father, that it will cost them!

Cases of mistaken paternity or paternity fraud should be treated as equally important topics, so a child has the opportunity to have a strong relationship with both fit, caring, and willing parents.

You can read the entire article in Georgia's Augusta Chronicle at: http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/030208/met_189488.shtml