question concerning bench warrants

[reportermom]

Your poor little one! I hope her daddy gets his act together soon.

I hope so too. I looked in my old email account today, the one I asked her Dad not to use and I found this email. It was a reply from an email I sent 4 years ago dated this Monday.

I just wanted to let you and your very lucky boyfriend know how amazed I am at your presistance to have me jailed, milk me for evey penny I have and keep my child away from me and my family who just as a reminder purchased 2 cars for you, a compute and gave you money for a down paymeny for your home.Your a very special person.I came up with two great nicknames for us both while I was sitting in jail today...you can start calling me "Meal-Plan" and can start calling you "Get a job and stop playing the system."(that got a nice ring ring to it).

He is starting to scare me again. He is remembering things that didn't happen, or at least not the way he remembers. His Mom gave me the last bit of money for my computer(about $800) and his Dad at one time gave me about $100 for a title transfer of a car. I tried to pay them both back and they wouldn't let me. The house I bought on my own with seller financing. ALL on my own.

As for his crack about a job, I make more now than when I first met him and was a pastry chef at a fine dining restaurant.

Why can't he see this isn't about him!?!?!? He hasn't even called to try and see his daughter!!!

 

[reportermom]

Update!

Well,

Dad paid the $500 in counsel fees and got his modification hearing. He is saying that is now has taken a job that pays $6.75 an hour and tips. He tried to argue that his tip income was nominal and he shouldn't be assessed any tip income. The hearing officer didn't buy it. My income has gone up since the last time we were in, so it resulted in a downward modification for him.

We argued that he has voluntarily left EVERY job he has had in the last 2 years until his income decreased almost 8,000 a year. He earned around 29,000 in 07-08, and this past year his income on his taxes was about 21,000. His excuse is that the economy is bad and he had to follow the money and left for better opportunities.

I just got the ruling and will be talking with my lawyer about if we should file exceptions and argue against him getting a modification at all. I find it ridiculous that Dad can just switch from job to job to job and not be held accountable for leaving a really well paying job.

What do you guys think? His payment went down $155. I got an email from him asking if I could count to the new payment amount.

 

[SESmama]

Do the math. What is it costing you to go after him vs. what you are actually getting out of him? At some point you probably need to realize that he simply does not want to pay and going back to court time after time only costs you more. A harsh reality for me 2 years later.

 

[reportermom]

I know. I now see that if he is willing to decrease his income to get a modification and then send me an email to gloat about it, he won't pay no matter what and will continue to sabotage his own life just to get at me.

It is ridiculous and sad. I'm going to see what the lawyer says and then probably drop it. I have better things to do with my time than allow him to think I care about his money.

The thing about the whole situation is that I will work many times harder to make it up to Little One because he refuses to see it is about her and not him. I will work any job I can in addition to the one I have now so I can give her everything he refuses to give her.

I just hate the fact that the court accepts his lies so easily.

 

[reportermom]

Another update!

Quick reminder of what happened: Dad had a contempt hearing and refused to go so was picked up on a bench warrent. Dad got order modified and was all happy and gloaty about it.

So after Dad got his downward modification, he had a job that was a "great" opportunity for him. I have received about $370 in June, when the order was modified to about 380 a month. There have been no payments made after that.

Dad has gotten yet another new job. Today in the mail I got the notification for the wage withholding order. The order has been modified from $40 a month extra on arrears to $229 on the arrears.

In a separate envelope I got a notice of a continued hearing of the contempt order.

I guess when he got the new job and the system had to be updated it (or someone) scheduled a hearing on the contempt that was still open in the system. He has to appear next month for a hearing about the contempt case. i haven't been able to have my lawyer ask for a hearing because I work similar to a teacher's schedule, with very limited income during the summer. (So limited that I worked at a car wash this summer.)

-->Should I make the effort to attend this hearing, or should I allow my lawyer to go in my place? I would have to lose income to go to it.

On an aside, Dad hasn't seen Little One since the first week of August. He just hasn't shown up, or has called at the last minute and said his car seats were wet and he couldn't get Little One.

Thanks for the replies! I keep lurking when I have the time!

 

[reportermom]

Well, here we are again! Dad's contempt hearing in October was not that big of a deal. I didn't take my lawyer with me and freaked out being in a cubicle with Little One's Dad. I agreed to another purge and another contempt hearing was scheduled in January. I was frustrated because our Domestic Relations officer only wanted to get us to agree to something and move on.

The January contempt hearing was very different. It was again in front of a Domestic Relations Officer. This officer was no longer playing good cop. She immediately demanded an explanation of why Little One's Dad wasn't paying the amount that his withholding wasn't covering. He hemmed and hawed and said he didn't realize that he had to pay outside the order. He tried to convince her that he could have $1,000 by the end of the month. She said it wasn't good enough.

So we ended up in front of the judge. He was found in contempt, but it was held off being dependent on him paying what he owed by the end of the month. We (me and the lawyer) asked for an automatic bench warrant to be issued if the support wasn't paid at the beginning of the month.

So he made a nice big payment, of course, because they didn't let him leave the courthouse without doing so! Later on in January there was another payment. There has been nothing since.

I keep track of the payments on the child support website where I can see the docket information. The February payment was not made on the first, and the site didn't update until after the first weekend of the month, which happened to be Dad's weekend.

There is another bench warrant issued for his arrest. This weekend is supposed to be his weekend. Sigh. He called her today and talked about how he has plans to take her skiing this weekend. All skiing is at least 2 hours away from us by car.

I really don't want to have a confrontation at her school where he is supposed to pick her up. I can't pick her up early, I have to work until almost the time she gets out of school. I plan on calling him in the morning and letting him know that she will not be going with him until he no longer has an arrest warrant out for him.

Will this ever end!??? May I have opinions on my plan? Or should I just call the sheriffs when he shows up without calling him. I don't want to have a giant deal at her school. There are too many children that will be around at dismissal and there has already been drama with her pickup this school year.

I am so frustrated with the situation!! It wasn't even a month before he started ignoring the court order!

 

[Ohiogal]

Try to modify the visitation so that at any point that he has an active arrest warrant, visitation is suspended until said warrant is cleared.