Man picks prison over paying support

Carl H. Burrows, 32, of Deposit, was arraigned on a sealed indictment in Delaware County Court on June 9.
Burrows pleaded guilty to a felony count of first-degree nonsupport of a child, and Delaware County Judge Carl Becker sentenced Burrows to one-to-three years in prison.
"(Burrows) was adamant that he wasn't going to pay," Vredenburgh said.
The case is the first felony prosecution in Delaware County under the  Deadbeat Dad' legislation that was passed in New York in the mid-1990s, Vredenburgh said.
Vredenburgh said a defendant can only be prosecuted under the felony statute if they have already been convicted of second-degree nonsupport of a child, a class A misdemeanor.
Burrows pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor level charge in Delhi Town Court on March 5 and was sentenced to three years of probation. He was also required to pay $52 a week in child-support payments and continue until the $39,000 he owed in back support is paid.
On May 27, Burrows was arrested for a violation of probation for not making any payments.
Burrows' attorney, Christopher Wilson of Oneonta, refused Thursday to comment on the case.
Laurie Schmitz, the mother of Burrows' 13-year-old daughter, Mia Burrows, said it was "a huge relief to know that something has finally happened."
Schmitz, 32, of New Smyrna Beach, Fla., said Thursday that she has known Burrows since she was about 12 years old; she was 18 when she had Mia.
Schmitz moved to Florida when Mia was a year old. She said Burrows came to Florida when Mia was 2 or 3, staying for a month, and it was the last time he saw her.
Schmitz said she sent Mia's school pictures to Burrows' family every year and occasionally called him, but he never made any effort to see his daughter or communicate with her.
"You can't force someone to be a father when they don't want to," Schmitz said.
Schmitz said she tried for years to collect child support from Burrows, but the last time she received any was in 2005, when he was ordered to pay $3,900 or go to jail. She said the original child-support order was issued in 1996 and required him to pay $28 per week. He can not pay $28 dollars a week? So this man loose days weeks and month even years of his life simply because he refuse to pay child support. Now he has a felony on his record limiting him on what kind of job he could get in his life time.
Schmitz credits Jeffrey Bowie, a Delaware County Social Services investigator, with pursuing her case against Burrows.
"They spent hours looking for him," Schmitz said. "I have gone to New York three times for court appearances, but he never showed up."
Schmitz said Delaware County paid to fly her from Florida to testify before the grand jury.
"It only took the grand jury about 30 seconds to indict him," Schmitz said. "It was really very emotional for me."
Schmitz said she hopes her victory will encourage other mothers to fight for their child's right to support.
"There are a lot of people out there that will not fight it because they don't know how to pursue it," Schmitz said. "Let this be a lesson that it can be done."
Schmitz said she doesn't expect to recover all of the money her daughter is entitled to.
"I've become immune to the fact that he is never going to pay _ but why should he be out and about making money and enjoying himself?" she asked.
Schmitz said that if Burrows gets out of prison and fails to make payments, she intends to pursue having him charged and arrested again. Hell has no fury like a scorn women... I understand now!!!
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Mc Grady ordered to pay $54,000 in child support

Basketball star Tracy McGrady of the Houston Rockets must pay a Bradenton woman $54,156 a year in child support for their daughter, plus insurance and tuition, a Sarasota County circuit judge ruled. The amount is far less than the $204,000 a year that Pearl Vega, 36, had argued would be more in line with McGrady's $21.6 million annual income and give their child a lifestyle more equal to that of McGrady's other children.

Women seem to think that since they had a baby by a star it intitles them to the stars money claiming that the child should live as the star lives. This is just simple logic that must be considered that if the child lives at a certain life style so must the parent!
The Circuit Judge Donna Berlin ruled that Vega had overstated the child's needs and has "used child support to enhance her personal lifestyle and that of her other two children."
"It is inappropriate for Ms. Vega to use child support as a means to further her education when she chooses to attend college as a full-time student and expect Mr. McGrady to pay for tuition, a full-time nanny and other domestic help," Berlin wrote in the decision. Now this makes sense, although a large majority of child support judges don't follow this thinking. Maybe a book should be written for judges called "Decision making For Dummies involving Child Support issues"

Vega's attorney immediately filed a notice the mother would appeal.
At a trial, she highlighted exactly what it means to be the child of an NBA star:
McGrady shares a six-bedroom, 23,000-square-foot house with a pool outside Houston with his wife and three children. He spends $5,000 per month on a chef and $1,732 for a housekeeper.
One of the children had a $16,000 birthday party for about 40 children, with a magician, clown, face painter, games and music.
McGrady and his family spend about $45,000 per month for personal travel, sometimes on private jets. The children went on trips to New York, to North Carolina a dozen times -- to Florida about the same number -- and to Atlanta, California, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas, Mexico, the Virgin Islands and Rio de Janeiro.
They stay at Ritz-Carltons, have private preschool and tutors, and get thousands of dollars' worth of clothes a month.

So he spends $45,000 a month with his family, this is a train wreck waiting to happen if he does not invest his money wisely... Some people call it bankruptcy...

‘Uncle Luke’

Davania Branch Burns, the ex-girlfriend to rapper Luther ‘Uncle Luke’ Campbell and the mother of his 20-year-old daughter, has reportedly asked a Florida judge to suspend his driver’s license for failing to pay child support.
According to The Miami Herald, Burns, a 41-year-old fire inspector, claims that Luke owes over $30,000 in child support for their daughter Lutheria Campbell.
Despite the fact that Lutheria is not a minor, Burns’ attorney, Jane E Carey, argues that the rapper’s daughter is entitled to the money.
“We want him to stand up and not be a deadbeat daddy,” said Carey. “He needs to do the right thing. He needs to take care of his child. Why should he not pay? The ordinary working man has to pay.”
Under Florida law, drivers with delinquent support obligations can have their license suspended. Carey wants Luke’s license pulled until he pays what we owes.

On fathers' responsibility, Obama gets a little personal

It's unprecedented. Barack Obama is using his campaign for president to upbraid African-American men who abandon their children.
The Illinois senator's politically risky message highlights a stark and very personal contrast between his upbringing and that of rival John McCain.
In a speech delivered Sunday to the congregation of the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, the Democratic presidential nominee lamented that too many fathers "have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men ... nowhere is this more true than in the African-American community."
This is the racial equivalent of Nixon going to China. While social conservatives like to draw attention to the unwillingness of too many young black men to assume the responsibilities of fatherhood, Democrats and liberals are more likely to focus on social barriers and systemic racism.
But lately, it is liberal African-Americans themselves who have taken up the issue. The comedian and commentator Bill Cosby caused a stir last year when he published a book arguing that black culture, including its music and its attitude toward education, sends the wrong message to both young men and young women, who too often behave irresponsibly as a result.
It is a message that Mr. Obama has also taken up, both in his book The Audacity of Hope and during this campaign. On Sunday, the challenges facing black families dominated his address.
"We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled since we were children," he told the congregants, as he recited a litany of grim statistics: "Children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; they're nine times more likely to drop out of schools, 20 times more likely to end up in prison ....
"Any fool can have a child," he said. "That doesn't make you a father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."
Like any good liberal Democrat, Mr. Obama believes that government can help, which is why the senator is calling for increased federal funding for maternity leaves, prekindergarten and teachers. He would also provide job training and tax credits to fathers who meet their child-support obligations and would provide in-home nursing support for expectant and new mothers.
But ultimately, Mr. Obama stressed, only mothers and fathers can raise a child. That, he said, means turning off the television or taking away the computer game and helping your child with her homework.
It means not treating your child's Grade 8 graduation as though it were a major event. "You're supposed to graduate from the eighth grade," he told the crowd, to laughter and applause.
Most important, it means thinking less about yourself and more about your obligations to others.
"I say this knowing that I have been an imperfect father," who is too often missing from his own home, Mr. Obama added. And he said it knowing, as well, how different his own upbringing was from that of his Republican opponent.
Mr. McCain likes to declare that "I'm the son and grandson of admirals." He calls them the first heroes he ever knew and describes his relationship with them in his book Faith of My Fathers.
Mr. Obama, by contrast, spent much of his youth trying to come to terms with his father - an ambitious young Kenyan who made it all the way to the University of Hawaii, where he met and married Mr. Obama's mother, before going on to Harvard.
But Barack Obama Sr. abandoned his wife and son and returned to Africa. Mr. Obama was partly raised by his mother's second husband, Lolo Soetoro, in Jakarta, and at the age of 10 was sent back to Hawaii, where his mother's parents looked after him.
"I messed up more often than I should have, but I got plenty of second chances," Mr. Obama told the congregation. His first book, Dreams from My Father, explores the candidate's search for personal identity in the face of such a cosmopolitan upbringing.
It is uncertain what political advantage Mr. Obama hopes to gain from raising this subject. Liberal critics, both black and white, might take issue with his insistence on the importance of personal responsibility - a theme usually appropriated by the right.
But Mr. Obama's message will score points with voters who distrust and resent the obsession with victimization that characterizes many leaders of the black community. It is Mr. Obama's refusal to embrace that mantra that had some African-American critics accusing him last year of being not black enough. "Now I'm too black," he joked Sunday, referring to resistance to his candidacy among some white, working-class voters.
Whatever the political consequences, however, it appears Mr. Obama intends throughout the campaign to press home his message of the need for parental responsibility.
"I know the toll it took on me, not having a father in the house," he said Sunday, "the hole in your heart when you don't have a male figure in the home ... so I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle; that if I could do anything in life, I would be a good father to my children."
Whatever else this message is, it is deeply personal.

Child support benefit law criminals

The Minnesota Child Support Enforcement Agency rewards our incarcerated criminals. Minnesota Statute 518A.42 Subd. 3 clearly lays out an exception for men or women who are incarcerated. This Minnesota Statute specifically exempts people who are incarcerated from the minimum child support requirements. I believe Minnesota taxpayers should know how this affects them.
Under our current child support system, when a custodial parent is receiving financial assistance from the county in which they live, such as cash assistance, daycare assistance, or medical assistance, the non-custodial parent is responsible for paying the state back a portion, if not all, of the assistance that was given to maintain their child. This is paid back with the child support payment that is ordered from the non-custodial parent.
The non-custodial is responsible for this even if they are not working. In the event that this is the case, the current child support becomes back child support and is still owed to the state.
And can be collected in many ways. This program alleviates some of the burden on the Minnesota taxpayers.
However, under the above mentioned statute, once a person becomes incarcerated they are no longer required to be responsible for child support. It stops until they are released, no matter how long the
incarceration.
And any back child support that is owed before they are incarcerated is no longer reported to credit reporting bureaus.
Our criminal justice system has punished the offender for their crime, and the Minnesota Child Support System turns around and rewards them. Child Support is forgiven during their prison stay. Any assistance that the non-incarcerated parent receives will not be paid back after the offender is released.
This law should be stricken, and offenders should be responsible upon their release to pay back the back child support that accrued during their incarceration.
The only person who benefits from this statute is the criminal. The person who could not obey the laws set up to protect us. And the law abiding, productive citizens of Minnesota foot the bill not only for their daily needs in prison, but also take care of their child support as well.
The child suffers and so do the already heavily-taxed Minnesota citizens.