Texas Attorney General
Anyone living in Texas and trying to collect unpaid child support from a dead beat parent is all too familiar with the Texas Attorney General. They go on record stating how much money they have collected and how they are on the children's side.
Up until about a month ago, I believed them. I've been divorced from my first husband for eight years. When our divorce was final, he was ordered to pay support for our two children. At the time they were twelve and ten years old. As the years went by he paid the support he was ordered to pay. Every three years there was a review to modify support, based upon his wages.
At the last hearing, three years ago, he was ordered to pay support indefinitely for our youngest daughter, who is now eighteen and mentally and physically disabled. Not only was he ordered to do this, but he was also ordered to pay back money he had stolen from her some years ago when her disability check had been accidentally been mailed to his address instead of mine, and he took it upon himself to sign and cash the check and take his girlfriend on a shopping spree.
In the last three years since this hearing, he has not paid back one penny of the stolen money, which was nearly a thousand dollars.
Last month it was finally time for another review. The statement showed he still owed for the stolen money plus interest. I was thankful and relieved that finally my daughter would be getting her money returned.
The day of the hearing I took my file, a copy of the canceled check with his thumb print and signature and a current printout of his live in girlfriend's son who is a registered sex offender in Texas. I was going to be ready for anything he was going to throw at me.
I walked into the courthouse and saw my ex-husband sitting with the attorney general's attorney. The way the hearing works is the attorney general sends an attorney, who does not represent either parent, but is there to make sure the children are represented and do what is best for them.
I found my seat, and the hearing began. The attorney asked my ex-husband if he was working. He stated that he is not currently employed, and is only receiving about six hundred and fifty dollars a month in social security benefits, which is what he is living off of. The attorney then asks me if I am currently working, and I answered yes. At this time, my ex-husband is paying two hundred and fourteen dollars a month for child support. I asked him, in front of the attorney, how he lives on four hundred and thirty six dollars a month. The attorney asked him does he have any other income. My ex-husband tells him no. Then I pulled out the copy of the check and the statement the attorney general's office had sent showing the amount due and the arrearages due. The attorney asked my ex -husband if he took this money from his daughter. He sat there a minute as if to think, and said he did take it. Then, the attorney asked him if he wanted to pay it back, he did not order him to pay it back, he asked him if he wanted to pay it back. My ex-husband had to take a few minutes to think it over, and finally decided to answer. He said he would pay it back.
What the attorney did next made me sick. He actually stood up and held his hand out to shake my ex-husbands hand, and said to him, Thank you for being a stand up father and doing the right thing. I felt as if I had been slapped in the face. Then the attorney gets out his calculator and reduces his child support to one hundred and twenty seven dollars. He then stated that my ex- husband can pay back the stolen money each month and adds eighty seven dollars onto this amount, bringing the total back to two hundred fourteen dollars a month. He didn't want my ex-husband to be strapped each month. Not only did he lower the amount but to make matters worse, the attorney told my ex-husband that when my daughter began receiving her own disability check each month, then he may not have to support her any longer.
Needless to say I walked out of there feeling numb and as if I'd been ripped off.
This is how the attorney general's office shows such a big profit in collecting back child support. It's a disgrace. They are not out for the best interest of the children or the parents who care for these children, but for the best interest of their all mighty dollar amount they show each month, at the expense of children.
I am going back to court in November, and I am going to contest this ruling. I am going to ask for a judge to rule instead of the attorney general's office, which I found out I could do that day, but the attorney did not tell me that this was an option.
It's hard raising children in our world today. It's even harder raising a disabled child. I need all the help I can get. I changed jobs three years ago so I could be home with her. My current husband went back to school so he could be better educated and make more money so I could change jobs.
Not once did the attorney shake my hand and tell me what an upstanding mother I was. Not that I needed him to say this, it just makes me sick that he thinks a man who steals from his children and purposely stays unemployed to avoid more child support is an upstanding father. The system needs to help the children and the parents in positive ways, not reward the dead beats with lower payment and praise.
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