Astonishing News Story About Child Support

A bakery delivery guy is paying $611 of his monthly income of $1,600 to his ex-wife in child support.  So far a pretty ordinary story, but things get more frightening.  The ex-wife has a court order for him to pay $2,000/month.   Since the order is for him to pay his ex-wife more than he makes, he is behind, to the tune of $61,000. 

His ex-wife is trying to get him extradited to New York.  According to the following story in the New York Daily News, under New York law since he owes more than $50,000, he “loses his right to appear in court to defend himself against her charges.”

If the NY Daily News is correct and that is indeed the law in New York, it is truly astonishing that a US citizen could lose his right to defend himself in court.    

Timothy McVeigh had the right to appear in court to defend himself against the charges of blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing hundreds of people.  He even had a first-rate lawyer appointed for him and paid by the taxpayers.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be soon tried in a US court, and even this guy, accused of masterminding the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing 3,000 people, will get to appear and defend himself in court.  In fact, I’m pretty sure he will get the services of a first-rate lawyer to defend him, paid by the taxpayers.

But apparently not this bakery delivery guy, Robert Myers, who never killed anyone and pays more than a third of his income to his ex-wife already.

Some of you might think there is no way this could possibly be the law anywhere in the United States.  Those of you with more than a passing knowledge of the constitutional guarantees of due process of law, or even those of you who have taken 8th grade civics, might think a person cannot be deprived of the opportunity to defend himself in court when he is charged with a crime. 

I once thought this as well.  But the more I see of how the law sometimes works, the less sure I am that things such as this can’t happen in the courts of this country.  There are certainly constitutional principles that would prevent such things.  But a constitution is only as strong as the people who enforce it.  And among many people who should be enforcing it (judges and state legislators), there is a tendency to create major exceptions in some areas.   One of these areas involves child support.  So it would not greatly suprise me to find out that Robert Myers won’t get his day in court.

Another interesting part of the story is that the ex-wife is suing two of Robert Myers’s former employers, alleging they failed to garnish his wages to pay her the child support.  At least one of those employers has asserted that it did pay her.  Here is the story:

Chandra Myers will be in Brooklyn Federal Court today to face off against Sara Lee Bakeries and Bimbo Bakeries USA Inc., which distributes Thomas’ English Muffins, Entenmann’s and other treats.

Myers contends the bakery giants defied orders to garnish a total of $36,000 from Robert Sean Myers’ wages from 2001 to 2004.

“It is unfortunate in today’s society that we not only have deadbeat dads, but we have deadbeat companies,” declared Myers, who has latched onto a rarely used statute to demand a half-million dollars in penalties and interest along with the millions in damages from the firms.

Bimbo’s lawyers and Chandra Myers’ ex charge the suit is without merit. Sara Lee had no comment.

Robert Sean Myers, a Los Angeles bakery deliverer, said he has records showing that he’s attempted to meet child support demands for his 6-year-old daughter.

He insists he won’t settle the suit with his ex-wife because $611 of his $1,600 monthly income now goes to their daughter. He also has five other kids to support, he said.

But Chandra Myers has a standing order requiring him to pay $2,000 per month in support based on her expenses. Now $61,000 behind, Robert Sean Myers says he’s tried to negotiate a payment plan, but she’s intent on getting him extradited here. Under state law, if his owed child support exceeds $50,000, he loses his right to appear in court to defend himself against her charges.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/04/21/2008-04-21_queens_mom_sues_bakeries_for_failing_to_.html

Hat tip: http://www.overlawyered.com/2008/04/queens-mom-sues-bakeries-for-f.html

Online Dating

I’m always shocked when I hear from my female friends that they are reluctant to enter the online dating world.  I don’t think their reluctance stems from the stigma once attached to online dating (if you have to resort to online dating you’re a loser; this perception is certainly not true and probably never was true).

They give many different responses.  Here are just a few:

It’s too much trouble.   It does involve quite a bit of time and sometimes trouble, but I think it’s worth the time if you’re looking to date, find a relationship, etc.  A serious effort might involve taking several hours to create a profile and then committing half an hour a day to communicating.

There are lots of creeps and losers online.  That’s some truth to this claim as well.  You can find creeps nearly anywhere.  But I think you can also find guys you might be interested in.  The time and trouble mentioned above results from winnowing out the ones you know you wouldn’t like to date.

But now for the good part (good at least for women) - an attractive woman is in huge demand in the world of online dating.  You will find advantageous male/female ratios.  I think most services have something like 60% male membership, 40% female membership.  EHarmony seems to be the only exception (I’m not familiar with the male/female ratio at Chemistry, a site owned by Match.com but operated much like EHarmony).

If a fairly attractive woman posts a profile with a picture, she will be covered up with responses from guys.  I’ve dated several attractive women I met online and they have almost all told me the same story: they get thousands of emails and expressions of interest each year.  And they’re not the drop-dead gorgeous women either.  Well, one of them was.  But I digress.

Chemistry even has an ad that implicitly refers to this male/female percentage.  The ad says something like, “Oops, we made a mistake.  We conducted a marketing campaign aimed at women and we got too many women members.”  The ad, targeted to guys, might as well come out and say, “Join Chemistry and you’ll have a good chance that a woman will write you back.”

This male/female imbalance means that women acquire a great deal of selection power.  An attractive woman has hordes of guys interested in her.  She will notice right off the bat that many of these guys aren’t ones she’ll be interested in.  But some will be.  So she’ll have lots of high-quality guys who have shown an interest in her. 

This will make her very selective.  The way the dating services are set up, she can either respond to the guys who swamp her inbox or she can search herself.

And this selectivity won’t be confined only to the initial stages of deciding who she wants to go out with.  If she goes out with a guy two or three times and is iffy about him, she knows she can easily go back to her computer and order up another batch of guys.

So girls, if you’re on the fence about online dating, you should take the plunge.  Create a profile this weekend, post a pic, and you’ll be dating in a few weeks.  You might even have a significant other by the Christmas season.