Welcome Home, Soldier–Dad Comes Back from Army in Iraq to Visit His Daughters, Is Jailed for Child Support
Background: In my co-authored column, Servicemen victimized by child support system (World Net Daily, 6/27/07), I discuss the ways the child support enforcement system victimizes innocent citizens, particularly military personnel. I wrote:
“Many men – particularly those in the military – are targets of abusive child support enforcement practices. While states receive federal funds for every child support dollar they collect, there are scant penalties for abuses. As a result, enforcement agencies have little incentive to give targeted men due process, to fix mistakes, or to write off erroneously or unfairly accrued debt. Instead, the bureaucracy simply charges ahead in trying to collect as much as possible.”
I have also discussed how difficult it often is for deployed servicemen to litigate or resolve their divorce and child custody matters while they are overseas. In my co-authored column Protect Deployed Parents’ Rights (Tucson Citizen & others, 11/9/06), I wrote:
“Divorced or separated military parents often lose custody of their children–and sometimes permanently forfeit any meaningful role in their lives–simply because they have served their country. Many married parents deploy overseas, never suspecting that their parenthood essentially ended the day they left home.”Here is another example of how our child support and family law system mistreats military fathers. In this case, a father serving with the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq comes back to the United States to visit his two daughters and ends up in jail for child support!Yes, he is behind on it–apparently because he was out of work for a while–but he has been paying child support directly out of his pay check each pay period. No, it doesn’t sound like this dad did everything right, but it doesn’t sound like he did much wrong either. It looks more like he was a victim of the child support system and his inability to fully litigate his divorce while overseas.
Moreover, it sounds like this so-called “deadbeat dad” joined the Army and went to Iraq partly because he needed to earn money to help support his children. Now his short two-week visit home, in which he hoped to spend time with his two little daughters, has turned out so badly that he says he’s looking forward to going back to Iraq! Welcome home, soldier.
Thanks to Mark, a reader, for the sending me the story.
Local GI sent to jail
Oneonta Daily Star (10/23/07)
By Jake Palmateer
Staff Writer
COOPERSTOWN _ A soldier from Oneonta on leave from Iraq said Monday he can’t wait to return.
Aaron O’Connor, serving with the 3rd Infantry Division, had 15 days back in the United States and said he intended to take care of personal business at Fort Stewart, Ga., as well as get his divorce finalized in Cooperstown.
He said he also hoped to spend time with his two daughters.
His ex-wife, Christina O’Connor, has full custody of their 8-year-old and 4-year-old daughters.
What he said he didn’t count on was spending a night in Otsego County jail on a contempt-of-court warrant issued in January relating to not paying child and spousal support. That warrant is based on a Dec. 13, 2006, judgment by Otsego County Family Court Judge Brian Burns that ordered O’Connor to a six-month commitment to jail unless he remained current on his support payments for 12 months and paid all medical and dental bills for the children.
O’Connor said he was arrested on that warrant Friday while in Cooperstown to finalize his divorce. The arrest, he said, came as a shock because he has had his child and spousal support payments automatically deducted from his Army pay. He was released for the weekend to see his daughters but was ordered to report back to the jail Sunday night.
After a family court appearance Monday, O’Connor, 30, said he was released from jail after paying $378, including money for an eye appointment and glasses for one of his two daughters.
“I just spent time in jail for under $400,” O’Connor said from a cell phone as he drove with his girlfriend to Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. “This never should have happened.”
From Dulles, O’Connor will fly to Atlanta and then to Kuwait. After that, he said, his next stop is Camp Korean Village in Ar Rutba, Iraq.
A former Marine, O’Conner joined the Army last fall with the rank of sergeant and shipped out to Iraq in January.
“I don’t like being away from my daughters. But it pays. It’s what I know. It’s what I do,” O’Connor said.
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Stumble It!
October 24th, 2007 at 12:07 am
It is Outrageous.
OUTRAGEOUS!
I am sure I am not the only one furious at the likes of Otsego County Family Court Judge Brian Burns, a weasel who treats with contempt such a struggling man who can not only just about cope with the destructive affairs of the heart but manage to fight for his country at the same time. And does the Judge think of fighting for anything at all? Justice, for example? No. He just takes his inflated salary from the public purse and sits on his bloated arse. Does the Judge even think of heady concepts like Justice? I very much doubt it. The idea doesn’t seem to cross his tiny, thuggish mind. His lawyerly wet dreams are of fees and extortion and giving beatings to recalcitrant victims who cannot manage to rustle up the wads of cash that the Judge and his ‘child support’ cronies demand.
But is anyone DOING anything about this corruption, this extortion, this protection racket controlled by the legal and bureaucratic mafia?
We complain. We offer supplication. “Please don’t beat me, Mr Thug”.
Now will you people vote for me?
I will have these carrion arrested and subjected to the sort of ‘procedures’ they seem to love so much. The lot of them. There will be no stone for these worms to hide under.
For every abused Sgt O’Connor, Hell’s minions will pay through the friggin’ nose. Those that I allow to keep their noses.
Vote #1 Amfortas. I will be as merciful as Judge Burns and my Gavel will fall upon them.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:27 am
You do a great service, Glenn, bringing these cases to our notice, day after day.
What is my wet dream? That 50 million MEN will desert the Republicans and the Democrats at the polls. That the CNNs and the Fox’s and the PBS’s and the ABC’s and the rest will report with astonishment that the Parties have collapsed and the mass of outraged men in America have *demanded* that a durn furriner come and rid this Great Nation of the scum that has so badly damaged it and no American Politician has shown any guts against.
From out of the South will come a furious Gnome who will lay waste the corrupt and restore Truth and Justice and, yes, the American Way.
A dream? If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?
I have 6 votes so far.
49 million 999 thousand 994 to go.
Vote #1 Amfortas. I will have a legion of Sgt O’Connor’s watching my back.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:19 am
The wonderful gem of an ex-wife is absolutely a piece of garbage. She gets over $1200 tax free a month from this man and she has nothing but contempt for him.
1200 after tax dollars per month means that he must earn $2000 per month just to make that obligation. That does not include a dime for his own living expenses.
If he’s deployed in the USA he gets $3000/ month which leaves him about $600 to cover all of his other expenses. This POS judge suggests that he pay in advance from his monthly stipend. UN-believable!!!