Outrageous Injustice in Paternity Fraud Case

In the article below Tulsa World reporter Jarrel Wade details the way the Oklahoma child support system has ruined the life of Brande Samuels. I discussed the problem of men being "defaulted" into fatherhood in my co-authored column New American Bar Association Article Points to Crisis in False Paternity Judgments (Baltimore Sun, 8/20/06).

One interesting note--in a sidebar to the story, the paper reported that within a year "there were 3,127 paternity tests conducted in DHS cases. Of those, 781 of the alleged fathers were found not to be the genetic father." For those counting, that's a 25% false rate.

From Child support law leaves man a default dad (Tulsa World, 10/13/2008):

Convicted and incarcerated for possession of drugs in 2002, Brande Samuels made a deal.

He promised himself and his family that when he left his prison cell, he would work hard to build a stable and positive life.

After two years in prison, he was released early on good behavior and worked for less than minimum wage while he trained to become a welder.

But that's when he first got notice from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services' Child Support Enforcement Division that he owed child support, he said.

Now, Samuels owes about $13,000 in back child support, he lives with his ailing grandfather and DHS seizes portions of his wages every month.

"The last four years have been the worst in my life," Samuels said about life since leaving prison in 2004. "I went into so much debt."

Samuels said under other circumstances he would take full responsibility for the child as a father should.

But he is not the father.

Samuels was aware of the possibility that he might be the father during the pregnancy, he said. But the mother had been in another relationship at the same time.

"She wouldn't even allow me to sign the birth certificate," he said.

Two months later, the mother — Nadia Smith — put his name down as the father when she filed for child support, which Samuels wouldn't learn about until after his Oklahoma prison sentence, he said.

"They make (the mother) give up a name for the potential father. If she doesn't give up a name, then she can't get any assistance," Samuels said about the process to receive child support.

Jeff Wagner, spokesman for DHS, said when a mother is opening a child support case, she names the alleged father and provides "a great deal of information" in the Mother's Affidavit of Paternity.

In 2004, when Samuels left prison and learned of his obligation to DHS, case workers told Samuels if he wanted to fight the original order and get a hearing, he needed a lawyer, he said.

"I just want to be heard," he said. "The court was made for justice. It was made to help make the right decision."

Samuels did not have enough money to pay a lawyer, and no one would take his case for free, so in 2006, he approached Neighbor for Neighbor, a Tulsa nonprofit organization. They helped him prepare papers to require the mother to provide the child for a DNA test.

He found out then that the mother had left the state and had to be tracked down. She had left Oklahoma for Texas, Texas for Iowa, and then Iowa for Mississippi between 2004 and 2007, he said.

Neighbor for Neighbor helped Samuels track her through the courts and filed court papers seeking a DNA test from the child in March 2007, according to court records.

Two months later, Samuels received DNA evidence that the child support had been based on a false assumption. He was not the father — 0.00 percent chance.

"I was hurt. I was actually hurt because they put me through all this stuff without the child even being mine," he said.

After his three years of work, he believed he would be forgiven all his debt for the child, he said.

But it wasn't forgiven, and according to Oklahoma law, it won't be forgiven.

In child support cases, the burden of proof is on the alleged father — the accused — according to Oklahoma statutes.

An alleged father must appear at a child support hearing to request a paternity test. If he does not appear, he is legally designated as the father and child support is established in most cases.

Once designated as the father, that person is financially responsible for the child until he or she is 18 or adopted with a few stipulations for petitions which may vacate the original order, according to Oklahoma statutes.

DHS records show that Samuels was served papers to appear for his child support hearing in 2001, but Samuels said he was working in Texas at the time and could not have received the notice.

Wagner said by Oklahoma law someone can be legally served if the subpoena is put into the hands of someone 15 or older who lives at the same residence as the person.

But Samuels said the documents never touched his hands.

Regardless of the outcome of the DNA test, which Samuels spent three years trying to get, it was already too late.

Samuels was ruled the default father in 2001, and legally, DNA has no bearing.

"If you got me on default, you should still have to prove that I'm the father," he said.

This is the second recent story in the media of a default father being forced to pay child support in a bureaucratic nightmare with DHS.

The first, reported by The Oklahoman, was about Micheal Thomas of Tulsa, who had shown that he had never even met the mother and that he had DNA evidence that showed he wasn't the father. Still, he became a default father after missing his initial court hearing.

DHS does not keep statistics on the number of established fathers or default fathers who are not genetically related to the child they are responsible for, Wagner said.

In the eyes of the law and DHS, once paternity is established, there is no difference.

DHS officials would not comment on whether any changes have been made in establishing paternity since the Micheal Thomas case was reported.

I suggest readers thank reporter Jarrel Wade for reporting on the story by clicking here.

We previously covered the Michael Thomas story at CS Enforcement Erroneously Badgers College Athlete, He Forfeits Scholarship & Drops Out. Thanks to several readers for sending the story.

Another Mom awarded sole custody...another baby dies.......

Father of Murdered Girl: 'I wanted custody...this could have been prevented, but it's too late'

Yet another story which illustrates the high cost exacted upon children by our family law system's severe anti-father bias. In this case, a loving father shared a special bond with his little girl. Nevertheless,  the family law system allowed a vindictive and apparently abusive mother to push the father out of his daughter's life--and it cost the little girl her life.

Dad sought custody:
Toddler was 'healthy, happy little girl'

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By Darren MeritzEl Paso Times

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Article Launched: 11/24/2007 12:00:00 AM MST

Marco Gonzalez, right, father of three-year-old Jacqueline Janice Gonzalez who was found dead Monday in her mother's car, is consoled by family friend Tony Bedoya at his parent's home Friday. (Photo by Mark Lambie / El Paso Times)

.. language="JavaScript"> if(requestedWidth > 0){ document_getElementById('articleViewerGroup').style.width = requestedWidth + "px"; document_getElementById('articleViewerGroup').style.margin = "0px 0px 10px 10px"; } ..> The father of Jacqueline Gonzalez, the 3-year-old whose
body was found in a plastic container in the trunk of her mother's car earlier this week, is going through the worst kind of pain a parent can endure.

Marco Gonzalez, 21, sat in his parents' apartment Friday in Northeast El Paso and recalled his daughter in the good times.

"We were very close. Every time I left, if I didn't take her, she would open the door herself and say, 'Daddy, I want to come,' " Gonzalez said. "She was a healthy, happy little girl, as you can tell from the pictures. She always had a smile on her face."

On Tuesday, while picking up his mother at a restaurant, Gonzalez got the news that Jacqueline had been found dead outside her mother's apartment at 625 S. Yar brough.

"I felt like my heart just dropped to the floor," Gonzalez said Friday, having a difficult time explaining his grief.

"I don't really show a lot of emotion. I'm the one who's supposed to be strong because it's my loss, nobody else's. I can't explain to you what kind of emotions," he said.

Jacqueline's mother, Yara Belen Perez, and her common-law husband, Francisco Javier Castaneda, were arrested Tuesday and charged with injury to a child resulting in death. They remain in custody in lieu of $200,000 bail.

Gonzalez said he was locked in a custody battle for Jacqueline after Child Protective Services closed an investigation into accusations of abuse against the girl's mother.

"The reason I was trying to fight for custody is because CPS closed the case, and I didn't think it was right," Gonzalez said. "CPS closed the case and she already had two charges of abuse against her."

Officials with CPS said Friday that Perez was investigated in two separate cases and that the agency did not identify any risk factors for abuse or neglect, but said she might exhibit irrational behavior at times.

Perez came across as protective of her children, they showed no signs of physical abuse, and she willingly signed a safety plan in which she promised not to physically discipline her children or leave them unattended, said Paul Zimmerman, spokes man for the agency.

"Through our investigation, risk factors were determined to be controlled," he said. "Mom did have some problems with irrational behavior."

About a year ago, a judge ruled that Perez would have custody of Jacqueline, but Gonzalez was allowed specific visitation days and Jacqueline could visit overnight once she turned 3 years old.

After Perez got together with Castaneda, the couple moved away, and Gonzalez did not know how to get in touch with them.

Perez's mother, Margarita Alcocer, secretly took Jacqueline to the Gonzalez home, a ruse designed to keep Perez from knowing that Gonzalez and his parents were seeing the little girl.

Perez's alleged lack of cooperation over visitation by Gonzalez prompted him to fight for custody, a suit that was scheduled for a court hearing in January.

"I know I could have taken custody," he said. "With court, all of this could have been prevented, but it's a little too late."

Gonzalez said that until about three weeks ago, he was staying at the West Texas Community Supervision and Correction Restitution Center, a halfway house. He said he lived there for about three months as part of his recovery after a DWI conviction from a year ago.

Jacqueline stayed at her father's parents' apartment for three months until about five weeks ago, but during that time Perez never called to check and see how her daughter was, whether she needed clothes or money or anything at all, said Antonio Gonzalez, Jacqueline's paternal grandfather.

Whenever the time came for Jacqueline to return to her mother's custody, Jacqueline would resist, saying that she didn't want to go home.

The last time Jacqueline was at her paternal grandparents' home, she jumped on the sofa and said she didn't want to leave when her grandfather said it was time to go back to her mother's apartment.

"I told her, 'Mija, we've got to get ready to take you to your mother,' and she said 'No, Pa! No, Pa! Bad boy.' " Jacqueline's grandfather said. "We picked up the sense more or less that something was wrong."

about my previous blog and ones like it

i'm not against women. i'm not against mothers. my issue is that fathers get a really raw deal in this county in all of our domestic relations and family courts and it's not fair. the National Orginaztion of Women (NOW) was founded during the feminist movement-the whole movement was about equal rights for women. for 30 years NOW advocated joint custody echoing their core belief in fairness and equality-they have recently switched their stance to sole custody favoring mothers and i don't think that is fair or equal.
Fathers are being elbowed out of their childrens lives. Cast aside as merely paychecks. The child support system is out of control. Errors are frequent and gross. More emphasis is put on simply collecting rather than making sure the amounts are fair and accurate. Possibly because states recieve 3 fedaeral dollars for everyone dollar collected and there are no checks or balances to make sure that money is appropriated correctly.
Children are DYING. And mothers are 7 more likely to kill their childrens in single parent households than fathers. It hurts me to see young lives ended before they have even really begun. I'm not saying men never kill their kids-it's just for every ONE man that does it-they're are SEVEN women that do and family court judges don't seem to bother to consider that. Nor do DCFS social workers.

What I'm also not saying is that the twins BM would ever kill them. I don't think so. I do think that when left unchecked she puts them in potentially dangerous, negligent situations-but that's a far cry from delibrately murdering your children.
My point in ALL of my blogs in FAIRNESS. I was raised with the belief that a woman can do anything a man can. I think it is an extremely healthy mentality for a young woman to have. It took a long time to get there. That however, needs to be checked with the fact that a man can do anything a woman can. Women are no BETTER than men and we need to deflate our heads and try to be equitable and fair in this country. The twins mother BELIEVES that she is doing V a great favor by giving him shared, split, or alternating holidays. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. That is the wrong mentality and that is the ignorance I am trying to combat with my bloggings. The children are EQUALLY theirs. She didn't contribute any more than 23 chromosomes to them or anything of the sort that ENTITLES her to the majority of the time and all of the holidays. The holidays should be split, equally. Parenting time should be split, equally. And the love the girls have for their parents should not have to be SPLIT at all.
Courts do not give fathers equal access to their children. That is a problem. And babies are dying because of it.

Why I’m having a great day-but I am sobbing nonetheless....

Court documents reveal that the father of a toddler left in a hot car on Tuesday wanted full custody of his son.

The boy's mother, Ashly Duchene, was arrested on one count of negligent homicide early Wednesday morning.

Duchene is still being closely watched, and it's possible that she might have been transferred from Fourth Avenue Jail to another facility.

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Police said Duchene left her 17-month-old son, Ryan Gallagher, in his car seat in her hot car for about seven hours on Tuesday.

Court documents show that the 22-year-old has attempted suicide in the past. Court documents also suggest that Duchene suffers from emotional problems and that "couldn't take it anymore."

Police believe Duchene was struggling with the responsibilities of motherhood.

"She's not happy to care for her child," Sgt. Joel Tranter said.

Duchene reportedly told police she almost forgot Ryan in the car on Monday.

The next day, she apparently forgot to take him to daycare before going to work at a Valley Hooter's restaurant. She started work at 10 a.m., and got off at 5 p.m. That's when she found Ryan in the car.

The decision was made to arrest Duchene on a charge of negligent homicide early Wednesday morning.

Investigators do not believe Duchene intentionally left her son in the car, but they're not calling it an accident, either.

"She was very neglectful," Tranter said. "She obviously failed to care for her child. ... It was so grossly negligent that it rose to the level of criminal charges."

Customers as well as strangers are dropping off flowers and teddy bears at the restaurant. Hear from them on Thursday's "Good Evening Arizona."

OK, Mom Let the Child Die, but at Least They Didn't Give the Dad Custody
Right???????????????
I HATE the stupid goddamned Domestic Relations sytem in this county where mohter can do NO wrong and fathers can NEVER be right enough.
A baby boy is DEAD. And if he had been with Daddy-he would probably be alive. And I'm crying harder because that kids had to suffer. He was COOKED ALIVE.

and btw-the resturant they are referring to is a HOOTERS