Socialite Fights Hedge Fund Millionaire Over $50,000/Month Child Support

A recent New York Times article discussed a scandalous affair involving hedge fund millionaires, a love child and a potential gold-digging socialite. No, the article was not a review for the latest episode of The Young and The Restless, it’s about a salacious custody battle taking place in New York.

The story begins in Aspen, Colorado, a great place for such a scandalous tale to start. It was there that Warren Lichtenstein, a Wall Street moneyman, met Annabelle Bond, a British socialite and famed mountain climber who once conquered Mt. Everest. The two began a fast and furious relationship and, five years ago, had a child together. Though they briefly were engaged, they never got married and broke up soon after their daughter was born.

Ms. Bond, not one to nurse a breakup for long, soon found herself in Aspen meeting yet another Wall Street financier, this time, Andrew Cader, a former Goldman Sachs executive and owner of the Tampa Bay Rays. The two began a new relationship right as Ms. Bond and Mr. Lichtenstein started a courtroom fight over child support for their daughter.

Ms. Bond decided to leave America and return to Hong Kong, where she was a citizen, and filed suit there against Mr. Lichtenstein. After a prolonged child support fight, the Hong Kong court ordered Mr. Lichtenstein to pay Ms. Bond $41,800 per month in child support as well additional money for school expenses, tutoring, medical bills and travel. Experts say the child support award was one of the largest ever issued by a Hong Kong judge.

While the original child support dispute is over and done, Mr. Lichtenstein recently caught wind of potential financial fraud perpetrated by Ms. Bond, something that he believes should justify a sharp reduction in the amount he pays in child support. According to Mr. Lichtenstein, Ms. Bond left him and immediately took up with Mr. Cader. Mr. Lichtenstein claims that Cader has conspired with Bond to hide her true financial condition and life of privilege by disguising monetary gifts as loans.

For example, Mr. Lichtenstein recently learned that Ms. Bond and their daughter have moved into a home in an upscale area of Hong Kong that is being rented by Mr. Cader for $26,000 per month. However, Mr. Cader has structured this lease as a loan rather than a gift. Additionally, Cader supposedly has given Ms. Bond more than $3.5 million in cash that has also been designated as a loan. Mr. Lichtenstein argues that this money represents gifts to a lover and not a loan and that the two have conspired to lie about Ms. Bond’s financial situation to extract more money in child support and also to avoid Mr. Cader having to pay gift taxes on the money.

The case is currently before the Federal District Court in Manhattan who will now have the pleasure of unraveling this web of intrigue.

If you find yourself facing the prospect of complicated divorce and have questions about your rights and options, contact an experienced Ohio family law attorney who can help guide you through the difficult process. Count on the expertise of Twinsburg family law attorney Carol L. Stephan.

Source: “Millionaires Clash Over Socialite’s Child Support Claims,” published at NYTimes.com.

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A recent article about a woman from Texas who was sentenced for failing to pay her child support obligations has sparked a debate about whether incarcerating people who have gotten behind on bills makes sense.

The woman, Cheryl Walton, was charged with two counts of felony non-support of her children. After pleading guilty, a judge sentenced Walton to a suspended five-year term. The woman is also required to immediately pay $5,000 toward her back child support as well as continuing to pay an additional $270 per month during her five year sentence on top of her normal child support obligations to ensure her arrearage is paid in full.

Stories of parents skipping out on the obligations to the children they should be caring for are certainly irritating. On the one hand, deadbeat parents should be punished and forced to pay for the children they created, but on the other hand, creating a modern day debtors prison is not something states should so happily embrace.

It’s been more than two centuries since a person was allowed to be thrown into jail for being behind on debt payments, but that has not stopped states across the country from embracing the idea that parents who owe child support money ought to be locked up. Ohio has a similar law which allows prosecutors to charge a parent who is in arrears with a criminal offense and ultimately serve jail time.

Ohio law makes the situation dependent on the amount of child support owed, but the charge that a parent could face for being behind ranges from a misdemeanor to a felony. While this may seem exceedingly harsh, it is thankfully only a last resort. Before jail time, a parent can have his or her license suspended, have hunting and fishing licenses revoked, lose their professional licenses (doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc.) and even have tax returns confiscated by state authorities.

In cases where such actions are not enough or where the amount owed is too great, courts in Ohio have the power to charge parents with criminal actions. Not only does this power extend to those people living within the state, but courts can even request that a parent be extradited from another state to be brought before an Ohio court to face charges.

This kind of power has prompted concern by some who worry about the effectiveness of such a strict system of enforcement. While jailing non-paying parents — the vast majority of them men — does lead to payment in many cases, critics say that it unfairly penalizes poor and unemployed parents who have no ability to pay, even though federal law makes clear that a person must have “willfully” violated a court order before being incarcerated. How willful is it when you have no job and not financial resources?

If you find yourself facing the prospect of complicated divorce and have questions about your rights and options, contact an experienced Ohio family law attorney who can help guide you through the difficult process. Count on the expertise of Twinsburg family law attorney Carol L. Stephan.

Source: “Unable to pay child support, poor parents land behind bars,” by Mike Bunker, published at NBCNews.com.

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Ohio Man Ordered To Refrain From Reproducing

An Ohio family court judge from Lorain County recently issued a controversial order requiring that a man who is seriously behind on child support payments not have any additional children.

Just last week Judge James Walther issued an order requiring a man from Elyria, OH to not procreate until he has taken steps to financially support his existing children. The case concerns a man who has not paid child support since 2009 for his four children from previous relationships. The man pled guilty, saying that while he doesn’t financially support the kids, he is a great father and is there for them in other ways.

Judge Walther was unsurprisingly not convinced, saying that the nearly $80,000 that the man owes is outrageous. Walther sentenced the deadbeat dad to five years of probation. During the length of that probation the man is not permitted to reproduce unless he can show that he has taken steps to support his existing children. If he does have another child, the man faces a possible year in prison.

Though some have applauded the move as an essential step to hold parents accountable for supporting their children, others have wondered about the constitutionality of Judge Walther’s decision. An Ohio case from 2004 was overturned after a judge issued a similar order. That case was tossed because the state Supreme Court said there was no mechanism in place for the man to regain his right to reproduce.

Surprising to many is that the decision is not without precedent. Just a few months ago a judge in Wisconsin ordered a man not to have another child given that he was unable to take care of the nine he already fathered. Another Wisconsin case involved a judge who ordered a man to not only refrain from reproducing, but to tell all women he meets romantically within three minutes that he’s a convicted felon with unpaid child support.

Some of these cases survived appellate review, which means it’s unclear what will happen in this case. The father has said he intends to appeal the decision to the Ohio Supreme Court. It’s likely that parents behind on child support payments will be anxiously awaiting news on the outcome of the case.

If you find yourself facing the prospect of divorce and have questions about your rights and options, contact an experienced Ohio family law attorney who can help guide you through the difficult process. Count on the expertise of Twinsburg family law attorney Carol L. Stephan.

Source: “Court to Ohio man: Stop fathering children,” by Evan Bevins, published at MariettaTimes.com.

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Notorious Deadbeat Dad Arrested by Feds

A man who has been called the “most wanted deadbeat parent in America” was arrested by federal authorities in California last month. The guy had to work hard to earn such a horrible distinction and the amount in arrears was truly massive. Authorities say that deadbeat dad owed his family more than $1 million in back support at the time of his arrest.

According to the federal government, the exemplary father went so far as fleeing the country to avoid paying what he owed. He picked up and moved to Thailand where he stayed for several years before moving across Asia and settling in the Philippines. It was in Manila that the man was located and eventually arrested. Filipino authorities deported him back to the United States where he was promptly taken into custody after arriving at LAX.

The 50-year-old man has not paid support for his three children in more than 10 years. The kids were from two different mothers and all were from New York. The man will be transported back to New York for prosecution given that the child support is owed there and not in California.

The lesson from the case of the worst deadbeat dad is obvious: when you are ordered by a judge to pay money, whether it’s spousal support or child support, follow the ruling to the letter. Even if you think the amount is unfair, pay it nonetheless. You can always turn to an experienced Ohio family law attorney to challenge the amount and attempt to modify support obligations later on.

It’s critical to understand that once a support agreement is finalized, the parties are legally bound to abide by the terms. Failure to do so not only will hurt your children who need the money to pay for important expenses, but can result in serious harm to yourself in terms of lost money, financial penalties and even loss of freedom. Rather than fleeing the country to avoid child support payments, it’s far better to turn to a skilled family law attorney to help guide you through the confusing process.

If you find yourself facing the prospect of divorce, contact an experienced Ohio family law attorney who can help guide you through the difficult process. Count on the expertise of Twinsburg family law attorney Carol L. Gasper.

Source: “Feds say NY man owes $1 million in child support,” by The Associated Press, published at CTPost.com.

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Ohio Launches Pilot Program Tying Child Support to Visitation Rights

Ohio University’s College of Health Sciences and Professions has announced it will participate in a project backed by federal funds that is meant to increase the time a child spends with both parents, specifically when the parents are no longer married and in the same house. The goal of the project is to have separated parents work more cooperatively together in the best interest of the child.

The Fairfield County Job and Family Services office is in charge of organizing the four-year initiative, estimated to cost $400,000 and officially referred to as Parenting Time Opportunities for Children to the 12th power, or PTOC12. The number 12 is meant to represent the 12 counties participating in the project: Coshocton, Cuyahoga, Fairfield, Franklin, Knox, Licking, Monroe, Pickaway, Stark, Summit, Union and Wayne.

Over the next four years, the state and local support agencies in the various counties will plan strategies meant to help establish visitation rights in coordination with the child support program. Right now, those two aspects of shared parenting are handled totally separately. The goal is to see if tying visitation schedules to child support orders can have a positive impact on the level of compliance with child support orders.

Under the system that is currently in place, if one parent does not pay the required child support amounts, legal action can be undertaken by the other party. However, if the parent with primary custody does not allow the other parent to see a child, there is not much that can be done. By combining both child support and parenting time, the coordinators hope that families will want to maximize shared parenting time and also stay current with child support payments.

The goal is to have the program up and running by the end of next year in Fairfield County and launch it in the other 11 counties sometime thereafter. Those in charge of implementing the new strategies say they will keep careful watch on data collected and determine if their goals are being achieved by tying together the two aspects of child support and visitation. The hope is that because of the widely divergent demographics in the participating counties – urban, rural, ethnic and economic – that the data collected will be helpful in providing a good example for the rest of the state to follow.

If you find yourself facing the prospect of divorce, contact an experienced Ohio family law attorney who can help guide you through the difficult process. Count on the expertise of Twinsburg family law attorney Carol L. Gasper.

Source: “Ohio University takes part in statewide study on separated parenting,” by Arian Smedley, published at AthensOhioToday.com.

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