Man jailed for not supporting kid who isn't his

[ketostix]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28080381/?gt1=43001

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A Philadelphia man was forced to pay more than $12,000 in child support for another man's daughter and spent two years in jail for falling behind on payments.

Dauphin County prosecutor Edward M. Marsico Jr. told The Patriot-News of Harrisburg that he is examining the case of Walter Andre Sharpe Jr., who has been unable to recover the money even after establishing that he isn't the girl's father.

The investigation has no specific targets, Marsico said.

Sharpe's troubles began in 2001, when he signed for a certified letter addressed to Andre Sharpe, the girl's father. The letter ordered Andre Sharpe to attend a child support conference in Dauphin County, where the girl's mother lived at the time.

Walter Sharpe, who was already supporting four children from a previous marriage, ignored the letter, and a judge ruled he was the father after neither man showed up. The county family welfare agency then began garnishing Walter Sharpe's wages from his job at a trash-hauling company.

He served four six-month jail terms for not keeping up with support payments between 2001 and 2005, then lost his job. Petitions he filed for DNA testing were opposed by the court's domestic relations officials and denied by the judge.

In May 2007, the paternity order against Walter Sharpe was overturned after the girl's mother and grandmother failed to show up to a court hearing. But the judge ruled in October that Walter Sharpe was not entitled to compensation.

Walter Sharpe and his attorney, Tabetha Tanner, claim his identity was stolen in 2002, when he met with agency officials and provided identification showing he was not the father. Instead, his personal information was entered into the agency's computer records, he said.

Officials in the court's domestic relations office would not respond to the newspaper's questions. They said in court papers that they determined Walter Sharpe was the father "after reasonable investigation."

Andre Sharpe has said he has always supported the girl, who is now living with him in Philadelphia and about to graduate from high school.

 

[Johnny Soporno]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28080381/?gt1=43001

This is an interesting story, but leaves a couple of ESSENTIAL questions unanswered?

Is Andre Sharpe related (perhaps the brother of?) Walter Andre Sharpe Jr? (They did appear to receive mail at the same address? Although that could have been an administrative mix-up.) If so, then a DNA test would not be conclusive in disproving paternity.

If Andre Sharpe (father of the child in question) accepted responsibility for the girl (who now lives with him) and asserts that he has always supported her, TO WHOM WERE THE SUPPORT PAYMENTS BEING MADE?

Now, there isn't anything in that article to suggest that Walter Andre Sharpe Jr. was not convicted and sentenced to the four 6-month terms because of failure to pay child-support for his four non-disputed children?

I wonder how this will ultimately turn out?


Johnny Soporno
Worthy Playboy

 

[puma183]

Our Family Courts and affiliated state beurocracies such as CSA's have increased their fiefdoms & powers exponentially in the last 30 years, all of it against the safeguards that supposedly existed in our constitution. Here is how various clauses have been negated/obsoleted:

- Abolishment of Slavery : Alimony : Check
- Abolishment of Debtors Prisons? : Bankruptcy-proof Support Arrears and Contempt Jailings : Check
- The Right to a Due Process? : No-Fault/Unilateral Divorce : Check
- Freedom of Association? : Proposed State Jurisdiction Over "De Facto" Relationships : Check

Every single human rights safety clause in our constitution has now been compromised. The biggest threat to the Western Male in the 21st century will not be gun-totting Arabs, nor will it be Chinese tanks. No. The biggest existentialist threat to the survival of the Free Western Male will be our own Police States here in the Anglosphere.

V for Vendetta. Mark my words friends.

 

[Nighthawk]

Imagine a woman paying for a child that wasn't hers.

That's right, you can't.

 

[Johnny Soporno]

Imagine a woman paying for a child that wasn't hers.

That's right, you can't.

Huh? That's ridiculous!

I know SEVERAL women who've adopted kids.

Johnny Soporno
Worthy Playboy

 

[ketostix]

Huh? That's ridiculous!

I know SEVERAL women who've adopted kids.

Johnny Soporno
Worthy Playboy

Lots of men adopt kids too. The difference is they weren't forced into it by a court or deceived into thinking the kid was theirs. No disrespect, but sometimes you come across as a cap'n-save-a-ho.

 

[jophil28]

Imagine a woman paying for a child that wasn't hers.

That's right, you can't.

Perhaps this question should have been worded thus, " Can you imagine a situation in which a court ORDERED a WOMAN to pay child support for a child ( or children) who was/were not her's and demonstrably so.
Can you further imagine a judged jailing that same woman when she refused to pay and protested her claimed maternity?
The women's groups would be firebombing the court house.

In the the case of W.A,Sharpe , where were the Men's Rights groups, where were the liberal lawyers, the social workers . Men who find themselves stuck on the "sharp" point (pun intended) of the law frequently suffer alone and unsupported.
WE are NOT good at fighting for our brothers, are we ?

 

[puma183]

Perhaps this question should have been worded thus, " Can you imagine a situation in which a court ORDERED a WOMAN to pay child support for a child ( or children) who was/were not her's and demonstrably so.
Can you further imagine a judged jailing that same woman when she refused to pay and protested her claimed maternity?
The women's groups would be firebombing the court house.

In the the case of W.A,Sharpe , where were the Men's Rights groups, where were the liberal lawyers, the social workers . Men who find themselves stuck on the "sharp" point (pun intended) of the law frequently suffer alone and unsupported.
WE are NOT good at fighting for our brothers, are we ?

No we are not. Part of the reason is that we are not very good at calling for help. With the internet, and advocacy blogs like Glenn Sacks / Men's News Daily, hopefully things willl change a little.

 

[mrRuckus]

I give up. Just slap a shock collar on me and a GPS into my foot and assign me to the women and children that i am the slave of. At least be honest about it.

 

[Johnny Soporno]

Nighthawk][/B] Imagine a woman paying for a child that wasn't hers.

That's right, you can't.

Huh? That's ridiculous!

I know SEVERAL women who've adopted kids.

Lots of men adopt kids too. The difference is they weren't forced into it by a court or deceived into thinking the kid was theirs.

Of course - but Nighthawk's comment was way offside, taken as it was written.

I'm by no means supporting paternity fraud - but you mustn't condemn ALL women for it! Easily 60%+ of kids born in North America ARE their 'nominal' fathers' GENETICALLY. So slamming all women is inappropriate.

No disrespect, but sometimes you come across as a cap'n-save-a-ho.

Heh - not for years. Now I'm General Save-a-ho.

Johnny Soporno
Worthy Playboy

 

[mikeraw]

A while back I read a post about a similar situation here on SS. It was in the form of a story... something about how a woman gets preggo from a ONS and her husband finds out years later that he's not the father of the kid yet the courts still order him to support the kid. There's a word or term for this... does anyone remember it?

 

[bigjohnson]

Cuckolded

 

[STR8UP]

So many pitfalls and landmines out there when it comes to relationships and the mating game.

Too many guys get into relationships and are deluded into thinking that they are immune to all of the chaos because they have found a "special" girl. I thought that a couple of times.....one of them left me and the other cheated on me so I had to dump her.

Playing with women is like playing with fire. If you aren't careful, you're going to get BURNED.

 

[Aenigma]

Another reason to play the field and not get married- if you're married the child is automatically assumed to be yours. If you're unencomboured by the shackeles of the government contract known as marriage- then you can always demand a paternity test before you have to pay child support (assuming you don't get railroaded like this guy did).

Overall though, the system is so biased against men then it makes one remember a certain quote from Thomas Jefferson:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

 

[puma183]

Real criminals (robbers, killers, rapists, kidnappers, etc) get due process in our society. They are innocent until proven guilty in front of a jury of their peers.

Not so in the parallel universe, tyrannical government-within-a-government system that we created called "Family Law'. Sounds so benign doesn't it? Here, your freedom can be taken away on a moments notice, your bank accounts frozen, your salary garnished, your drivers license and passport revoked, with one unilateral divorce/CS filing. Your house taken away (or more like you get taken out of your house) with one VAWA phone-call.

Men - Don't sign the marriage contract.

If this was Africa circa 1600's, I would say: Men - Stay away from the beaches and the big sailed European ships.

Either will take you off to a lifetime of slavery.

 

[Jitterbug]

Perhaps this question should have been worded thus, " Can you imagine a situation in which a court ORDERED a WOMAN to pay child support for a child ( or children) who was/were not her's and demonstrably so.
Can you further imagine a judged jailing that same woman when she refused to pay and protested her claimed maternity?
The women's groups would be firebombing the court house.

Can you even imagine a court ordered a woman to pay child support to her OWN children? Women get custody in most cases and in the cases that they don't, it's usually because they're fvcked up beyond all recognitions and totally broke, so they can't pay sh!t anyway.

 

[horaholic]

Overall though, the system is so biased against men then it makes one remember a certain quote from Thomas Jefferson:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Yet, anyone who believes that, is labeled unpatriotic.

 

[puma183]

I am awaiting for the first politician with reall b@lls who capitalizes on the rising male-awareness and male dissapointment in our anti-male laws. I suspect this will first happen in a Leykis-dominated State (CA, OR, TX, FL, etc). Yes all politicans are afraid of the feminist lobby, but there is a growing silent majority of men out there who have had enough. We need a new political movement of young reformers who will storm state legilatures and reverse/correct some of the femi-nazi legislation from the 1970's. It doesn't have to go back to being patriarchal; just something more just and a fair compromise in the middle.

Also, not all female voters will oppose such reforms. There is something going on called the Marriage Strike. According to the latest available data from 2004, the number of weddings-per-capita have halved between 1969 (the first no-fault-divorce reforms) and 2004. Google for the Rutgers University Marriage Study. There is a whole generation of not-as-young-as-they-used-to-be women who are heading off to lifetime spinsterdom. Men have foresaken them, not through necessarily their own faults, but in awareness of the anti-male/anti-family laws. Such women too can join in the revolution, if they know what's good for them.

 

[jophil28]

It doesn't have to go back to being patriarchal; just something more just and a fair compromise in the middle.

I really believe that a "fair compromise" is impractical and I really think that a patriacal society is the system which has the highest probablility of success.
We had been trying to get this "marriage thing " handled for a lot of centuries with miserable success. Look at the current divorce rate for a progress report on our ability to "do marriage"..

 

[puma183]

No Fault Divorce w/ No Fault Alimony bundled-in really f_ed things up. Government usually uses financial incentives (tax breaks, credits, small business loans, etc) to get people to do the right thing. But for some reason with divorce laws, all the incentives are alligned towards Cupcake running off and destroying a family unit with zero repurcussions on her behalf. Only rewards.

I mean if she just ran off fine; but she insists on taking your future earnings for life with her. Heck if I was a chick, I would be tempted to have a eunich/slave too. The eunich/slave (at least his wages) could serve my every whim while I boinked away with attractive strangers for the rest of my life.

Can't lawmakers see that the 50% divorce rate, with 70% of it being filed by women, is a direct result of the laws that they put in place back in 1970? If it was any kind law gone awry such as environmental law, or some crazy tax loophole, they would have fixed it a long time ago. Why not fix the monster that is now blowing up families worldwide?