Need legal help ASAP

[maria and mia]

What is the name of your state? Illinois

Many of you are familiar with my case...I have posted it several times.

I have learned that what I want and what the judges order are
different. I have come to accept that.

In a sentence or two I'll describe my situation: It has been 10 years and my daughter's father has seen her maybe a total of
8-9 times. He owes over $25,000 in CS, I have a warrant for his arrest.

He called last week and stated to her (my daughter) that he is coming in March to see her. Now...do I call the sheriff's office and have him arrested? I have explained to my daughter that her father has done a bad thing and just like I punish her when she does bad things.....daddy will be punished also. Oh, he is very aware that I am pursuing this the the legal system and he has basically done NOTHING to help himself or the situation.

I want to hear the legal consequences of having him put in jail.
I have been patient, I have done everything legally, now the warrant has been put into place....do I call the cops???

 

[stealth2]

Depends - how easily will you take your daughter's judgement that you had her Daddy put in jail?

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

What is the name of your state? Illinois

Many of you are familiar with my case...I have posted it several times.

I have learned that what I want and what the judges order are
different. I have come to accept that.

In a sentence or two I'll describe my situation: It has been 10 years and my daughter's father has seen her maybe a total of
8-9 times. He owes over $25,000 in CS, I have a warrant for his arrest.

He called last week and stated to her (my daughter) that he is coming in March to see her. Now...do I call the sheriff's office and have him arrested? I have explained to my daughter that her father has done a bad thing and just like I punish her when she does bad things.....daddy will be punished also. Oh, he is very aware that I am pursuing this the the legal system and he has basically done NOTHING to help himself or the situation.

I want to hear the legal consequences of having him put in jail.
I have been patient, I have done everything legally, now the warrant has been put into place....do I call the cops???

My response:

This is a personal decision of yours. It's not a "legal" question. The "legal consequences" are not your concern. That's the "concern" of the State.

IAAL

 

[nextwife]

And she now has an opportunity to see her daddy. How will she feel about you taking that away from her? Especially if it causes him to give up trying entirely? Would she in the future, deep down, blame his failure to come around again on your having him jailed? seems you are playing with fire. Jailing him may make you feel vindicated, but may really, in the long run, backfire big time.

 

[maria and mia]

Thank you....

Thank you for the advice........I very truely respect it.

I have been patient with him for the past 9 years...he has not
lifted a finger to help himself legally...when she was born and after the support was put in...he had 30 days to contest the order...he never did. I asked him to have the birth certificate reflect that he is the father, and she could even have his last name...he did nothing...he smiled and walked away. I gave him several opporunities to meet us in the park....he never showed. I have given him several opportunities to babysit our child while I was working....he never showed up. I didn't want my daughter to grow up hating her father...so I put her in therapy...the therapist asked for her father and I to join one of her sessions...he refused. I invited him to one of the birthday parties he was in town for.....he didn't go. When she graduated from kindergarten...her father knew about it and his excuse was "he overslept". And all this time I have not lied to my daughter...
I have told her that her daddy will be punished. And all my daughter says is: GOOD. This is not my influence, I never badmouth her father. This is her opinion...so I really don't have an issue calling the cops.....should I?

He resides in California, so this would be one of the very few times that he will come to Illinois.....the California Dept. of Child Support Services said that they couldn't enforce it because they need to see the case and papers beforehand, I am waiting for the State's Attorney in my state to mail them.

 

[Born to Lease]

My 4yr. old daughter has never even met her father, as he left me when I was only a couple months pregnant. I have never pursued childsupport or anything else from him because I figure as long as I am able to take care of her I will do so, and the couple hundred dollars a month he would be ordered to pay would not be enough to make a significant difference in financially supporting her. BUT it would significantly affect her emotionally and mentally if she was put in the middle of issues that have NOTHING at all to do with her.

I made the same decision with my older kids, now 15 and 17yrs. old. Their father was never ordered to pay any type of financial support, and for years he did not excercise his visitation rights on any sort of regular basis.

However, 5 years ago he made a drastic change and he started asking for extra visits with the kids. Even still, I did not seek any financial assistance.

I resent these men for their decisions, but I am going to tell you that there is no amount of money that would be worth replacing the sense of peace and all that has resulted in my teenagers BECAUSE of their relationship with their father!

Ask yourself which answer would most benefit your daughter? Spending time with her father, an opportunity for the two of them to build their relationship even if it never reaches a strength that is desired by most children? (or) Turning him into the authorities because he has refused/failed to make support payments for the past 10 years.

REMEMBER: we cannot ever punish these dead-beat dads for putting us in the position of raising their children! On the flip-side, they can never know the joy that comes from raising their children! I have to say that, for me, the choice was easy to accept the situation and promise my children to never interfere with their relationship with their father, neither assisting or preventing the relationship.

Your daughter is only a few years from being grown, and these are the most critical years for developing their self esteem and directing their paths for the future. Maybe you should ask her if having a relationship with her father, on any level, would benefit her right now and also if having a continued relationship with him would be better FOR HER? Then, whatever she says, you should force yourself to accept it as your answer!

 

[Exsisto]

My father didn't come around for years after he left us. He didn't pay for years. I never heard a foul word from my mother's mouth nor did I hear of it from anyone else. When my father started showing interest in my late teens it was exteremely difficult to take to the point of me and my sister becoming physically ill when we knew he would be in town. Our situation consisted of severe abuse and alchoholism of both parents so our situations are probably very different but please hear this out.

Still I never heard a foul word from my mother about my father.

When I became an adult I did hear the whole story about how she had him put in jail three times and all of his running from his responsibility to us for almost seven years. As an adult I understood this. As a child, who knows what I would have thought. I was emotionally absent to both of these people for several years for different reasons as a teenager. The family consisting of myself, my sister and my mother reanimated absent our father. It took much longer for contact with him to leave any positive feelings.

After many years of a good friendship with my father as an adult I took a surprise visit on father's day three years ago (twenty two years after he left us) to his house a few hours from my own and told him that I was glad he left when he did however I forgive him for everything. I had long forgiven my mother.

I treated both of these people separately as they were kept separate in my mind by the restraint and control of my mother and with enough love for me and my sister she never let her anger towards our father show in front of us. I fly myself and my son out from Indiana to California now for a week every summer to stay with him. He's a brilliant man (and the only known outspoken Republican in the state of California) and I will always love and respect my mother for allowing me to know him for who I know him for, not for who she had known him to be.

You keep asking people if what you want to do is the right thing. If you have to ask the same question over and over your answer should be very clear. You have been raising your daughter on your own while harboring this resentment and anger towards her father for this long. It's time you found some way to deal with this yourself and how you feel and continue raising your daughter yourself and find a way to deal with the feelings that seem to be not only tearing you up but are allowing you to begin tearing at your child. These feelings do not belong to her and you should not force her to own any of it.

 

[CaliCat]

You should not talk to your daughter about this. Absolutely not.

Do you think he will stand he up again?

I have been sitting here thinking, and I think it will be tougher for her to have a father in jail (YOUR tax dollars will end up supporting him instead of him supporting your child-how ironic) than just a dead-beat. Let his punishment be to not have the priveledge of seeing her grow up. Don't tell your daughter he is coming to visit until he is actually there. You don't want her to get her hopes up in case he doesn't show. As an ex-babysitter to foster family (I moved out of state, which is why ex), I was the one to deal with the foster mom's bio-daughter's dad's visits. She left at those times and I babysat all the children. When the father didn't show, the girl, who was 11, sometimes cried, sometimes hid it until I heard her in her room throwing stuff or screaming into a pillow. It would have been better for her to not have had her hopes high and for the visit to have been a "drop in" to her if he ever showed.

Even though jail will seem like a punishment to him, the bigger punishment is one he has given himself without knowing it, and that is missing out of your daughter's life.

 

[maria and mia]

Thank you....

I thank everyone for the advice. I got some answers and I think have have some additional questions...

Here's my conclusion...
1) I can do this legally....there is nothing saying I can't

...everything is permissible, but not beneficial.

2) I do not want my daughter thinking/blaming me in the
future for making things even worse between her and her dad
so I will not be calling the cops,
HOWEVER...
if/when the Illinois State Police decide to enforce
the warrant...I will have to deal with it at that time.

I am a firm believer of the quote "what goes around comes around".

Thanks again everybody.

 

[CaliCat]

Glad to help, if I did anything.

 

[ddamron]

lets get real

I know that i am probably going to get nailed to the wall by making this statement but here i go. time and time again i read posts where one parent is not paying child support but still wants visitation. i know that they are seperate issues, but lets get real. it the parent can afford to pay and does not then why not let them have it any way possible? i know that we all think that the child may be emotionally hurt if we stop visitation, but are they not already hurt by the fact that the cp cannot provide adequately because of the non payment. it's a bad situation, and i know the courts see it differently, but someone needs to stand up and let these deadbeat parents know that there are consequenses for not supporting your children. its one thing if your trying and just cannot make it, its entirely another if you flagrantly ignore your responsibility because you know that you can still have your cake and eat it too. just venting but would like to see some modification of the law. we modify everything else when it comes to child visitation, custody etc. why not non supporting parents? sorry i know this is not a legal question or any sort of advice, but just needed to get if out.

 

[nextwife]

As you believe CS and visitation SHOULD be related matters, should it be ok for a NCP who is not being allowed their Court ordered visiation to NOT pay if it is denied them, or CP up and moved the child with no notice, denying them their access?

And, in reality, don't you end up punishing the child for their parent's failure to pay? By denying them a chance to see a parent they are despirate to spend time with? This is about the child, not the father.

 

[haiku]

Dear abby post alert...

you know I am in full AGREEMENT that BOTH parents need to support thier kids but people....why the HELL do you feel the need to tell your children daddy pays support for you-and how much or how little, or that you are poor because of it blah, blah blah... do you show them your PAYCHECK every week too?

Children need to be children, they do NOT need to know how the roof, food or clothes get there, it is NOT thier concern or God help us, WORRY.

I grew up poor,but I never knew it. I never knew that there were times my mom took us to the coffee shop for a donut and the reason she didn't get one was because she could not afford one for herself, not because as she told us she was not hungry today.

I never thought about why there were things my family did not have or do, because well I liked what I did have and anything I didn't well, some kids always got more and some even less, that was life.I never gave any of it a thought. I never even knew my dad was supposed to PAY support until I was well into my teens. when I went to bed at night, I was happy and secure, not worried because my daddy did not pay for me! Why would anyone give thier child such a burden is BEYOND my comprehension!

Did you ever think, these kids are agreeing with you to have daddy "punished" because you are constantly telling them daddy is "bad" and they want to please YOU the person they live with and have to face everyday?


argh rant of day over.....

 

[stealth2]

I agree, haiku, and had the same thoughts myself. A child shouldn't be told their parent will be punished. The fact that she agrees and is glad that he will be indicates that Mom IS in fact talking about Dad in a less than favorable light. That benefits the kid not at all.

yes, it's easy to say "BUT IF DAD CARED, HE WOULD...." We all agree. But it doesn't help the kid to say that - it only helps Mom. So shut up, and let the kid figure it out on her own. It won't be any easier, but it WILL help her to know that Mom cared enough about her to just shut the trap.

 

[maria and mia]

Clarification

The only thing I have told my daughter is that daddy has done a bad thing and he will be punished. I am simply stating the truth. And I do want to instill the values of responsibilty and consequemces for your actions. As much as I didn't want her to see anything , she did. She started questioning me...
"mommy, why are you going to court?"
"mommy, why does daddy leave those messages with bad words on the answering machine?"

He has done this to himself with no help from me, what my daughter sees and hears does not come from me. I have never badmouthed her father nor have I put him in a "bad light". Whatever my daughter opinions come from are from actions that have come from her father. She forms her opinions.