Once upon a time there was a divorce and a child of the divorce. At one point, after the divorce was final, and the mother of the child of the divorce met someone else and was going to remarry, she told the father of the child of the divorce that her new husband was going to adopt the child and that the father should not come to see the child or send presents any longer or anything. So the father stopped. Twenty years later, when the laws all changed, the father was notified that he owned twenty years of back child support. He was willing to pay but wanted to see the child that he had never been able to see. He was told the law didn't care and it was two separate things. He asked that the law verify that the child was truly not adopted and he was told that the law didn't care and it was up to him to prove any different scenario. The father's lawyer suggested they file for a hearing to contest the rule of enforcement, so on the day of the court hearing, the father went downtown and stood in a big long line like this with probably thirty other deadbeat dads (which were mostly Hispanic) and waited with his lawyer for his fifteen minutes. The Judge didn't give a goddamn about any of the men and one after another told them that they had to pay. The same happened with our father of the divorced child. The lawyer didn't understand why his filing didn't work. But the father quickly understood that this did not have to do with him or any of the thousands of other fathers. This had to do with money and it was a machine set up by the DA's office in Los Angeles and across the country to collect the money no matter the circumstances or the guilt or innocence of any of the parties. So then the DA came after any money they could grab. Salaries, assets, cars, houses etc. It didn't matter if you needed a car to go to work so the DA could take your salary. It didn't matter that you might have other children to feed that were living under your roof. The father of the divorced child was a smart man and was able to protect his family, but the long line of not so smart poor men in the line (who didn't have lawyers) probably were ruined to the point that they dropped out even more, changed their name and identity and became illegal immigrants in Mexico where they could starve to dead without legal harassment.
You also get your name on the lists and the websites like the one I included above.
I paid my debt to society (and to the ex in Texas who probably bought herself a house with the money) and my current wife has forgiven me for my transgression and I assume my name is not on any more lists. I was also given other bad legal advice from lawyers who will take your money under the pretext of "helping you." And I still haven't gotten to see my child, who is grown now and married.
The one bit of justice I did get throughout the entire process was when I paid the bulk of the money and the DA's office came back one more time and tried to bill me for the accrued interest for the money that I hadn't known that I owed, I was able to quote the law back to them and show them that they could not do it and the lady actually corrected their mistake and removed the amount owed.
Also, the ex and her family knew of my whereabouts the entire time over the last twenty years and could have written or called or filed at any time for the money. I am also a child of divorce and was supportive of my mother when she had to garnish my own deadbeat dad's wages to get her child support. But this had nothing to do with the law or justice.
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