PARENT'S RIGHTS NOW!

BEAUFORT COUNTY TREASURER'S EMPLOYEE PLEADS GUILTY

According to the Post and Courier:

An employee in the Beaufort County treasurer’s office has pleaded guilty to taking $210,000. The Beaufort Gazette reported that 30-year-old Casaundra White pleaded guilty to two counts of embezzlement and two counts of conspiracy on Monday. Circuit Judge Michael Nettles sentenced White to 13 months in prison. She also has been ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and repay the money. White apologized before she was sentenced. She was charged last May after an audit determined that she had funneled money from public accounts into dummy corporations. White’s former boyfriend is charged with helping her set up the dummy corporations. Thirty-seven-year-old Adrian Coore is charged with conspiracy and is awaiting trial.

Click here to read "New Hire Reporting Information for Hawaii." Or click all of the following links:

Click here to access South Carolina's Employer New Hire Reporting website and click here to read "Child Support Enforcement New Hire Reporting Facts."

Careful readers of the documents posted at the various cited links would probably receive the impression that South Carolina's New Hire Reporting laws are very similar to those of Hawaii. However, there are some critical differences. For example, despite the information contained on its DSS website, South Carolina's statutory scheme, unlike that of Hawaii, does not mandate new hire reporting as required by federal law. Therefore, no penalties are imposed--nor can they be imposed--against those employers who choose not to report new hires in South Carolina.

Recently appointed South Carolina DSS Director Lillian Koller formerly held the equivalent position in Hawaii. Moreover, she is an attorney. Therefore, she both understands the requirements of the federally-mandated New Hire Reporting Program and can help South Carolina develop a statutory scheme which is both effective and complies with federal law.

Now, if the South Carolina General Assembly will only listen to her.

According to the January 13, 2011 DSS Presentation to the Full Ways and Means Committee, this system is scheduled to come on-line in September of 2012; note numbered page 10 of this document. That means that South Carolina is likely to be fined another $10,000,000 before the system is finally installed. That should bring total fines to over $102,000,000.

According to South Carolina Department of Social Service Presentation to the Full Ways and Means Committee, the South Carolina Department of Social Services had a budget deficit of $28 Million as of January 13, 2011. Approximately $10 Million of the deficit is apparently a portion of a recurring federal fine imposed against South Carolina related to the State's failure to install a federally-mandated child support tracking and collection system. According to SC agency: retirement was key in $28 Million deficit, "about $17 Million of the agency's deficit disappeared when it changed how it calculated how much money it needed to cover its programs and froze hiring."

Before what amounts to an accounting error was discovered, DSS advised the Full Ways and Means Committee that the federal government was to blame for its deficit woes. However, the federal fines that were imposed for South Carolina's failure to comply with the federal mandate to install a computerized child support tracking and collection system are of DSS's own doing. And the problems with uncollected child support are the fault of CSED Director Larry McKeown. Additionally, Mr. McKeown has failed to institute measures to reduce the child support arrearages that have been successfully implemented in other States. And as a result of the ineffective manner in which Mr. McKeown has run his department, South Carolina has not only been fined over $90 Million, but has missed out on federal performance grants.

On the bright side, frightening as the "misplacement" of $17 Million is, South Carolina's new DSS Director appears to be on the ball. We would say she has already earned a raise and that if "the past is prologue" the 70,000 missing South Carolina Deadbeat parents should come out of hiding now and try to work out a payment plan before it is too late.

Some folks complain about how long it takes to get into Family Court in South Carolina as well as the difficulty of narrowing and resolving issues before a final hearing. Charleston attorney Gregory Forman explains one of the reasons for the holdup in this post to his website. We think Mr. Forman correctly interprets the Law. However, we also see no reason that Rule 50 should not apply in Family Court.

This is old news, but new news to us.

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Judge frees Pa. inmate who served record term for delinquent alimony account

PHILADELPHIA -- H. Beatty Chadwick, imprisoned in Delaware County for the last 14 years, was in the jail library yesterday giving legal advice to female inmates when a prison official walked up and gave him the news.
He was a free man.

Minutes earlier a Delaware County Common Pleas judge issued an order granting Mr. Chadwick's petition for freedom, thus ending his incarceration for contempt of court -- a U.S. record for the charge.

"We want you out of here right away," Mr. Chadwick, 73, said the official told him.

In 1995 -- the year "Apollo 13" was a box-office hit, O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder and 169 people were killed in the bombing of an Oklahoma federal building -- Mr. Chadwick was a corporate lawyer who grew up in Bryn Mawr and became embroiled in a nasty divorce. In April that year, he was arrested by two sheriff's deputies at his dentist's downtown Philadelphia office and landed in jail.

A Delaware County judge issued an order to jail Mr. Chadwick for failing to deposit $2.5 million in a court-controlled account that would be used to pay alimony to his ex-wife, Barbara "Bobbie" Applegate.

Mr. Chadwick contended he no longer had the money, saying he lost it in a bad overseas investment. The judge believed he hid the money after divorce proceedings were started. Court-ordered investigations after he was jailed turned up no money.

The couple were married for 15 years. Mr. Chadwick called their marriage happy; she said he was stubborn and controlled her every move.

Efforts to reach Ms. Applegate's attorney, Albert Momjian, yesterday were unsuccessful.

In yesterday's ruling, Judge Joseph P. Cronin said Mr. Chadwick had the ability to comply with the 1995 court order to make the bank deposit and willfully refused to do so. But, after 14 years, Judge Cronin said, the contempt order had lost its coercive effect and instead had become punitive.

At the prison yesterday, when Mr. Chadwick's attorney, Michael J. Malloy, arrived to pick him up, about 50 people -- prison staff, correction officers and inmates -- were gathered inside and out to see him off.

"It was pretty remarkable scene," said Mr. Malloy. He added people were crying, shaking hands and hugging Mr. Chadwick. When he walked out into the brilliant, blue sky day, Mr. Malloy said everyone applauded.

The two packed 14 years of clothes, books, magazines -- including Bon Appetit -- and boxes of legal filings into the backseat and trunk of Mr. Malloy's Honda Accord, and then they drove off.

"I really missed being free and being able to have interactions with other people," said Mr. Chadwick, who was dressed in a dapper green suit and maroon tie for the occasion. "Jail is really a very artificial society."

Later in Mr. Malloy's office, Mr. Chadwick talked about his legal battles, the judicial system, his life in prison and his future.

He said he held no anger about the imprisonment or toward his ex-wife, to whom he has not spoken in more than a decade.

"The dark moments always came when I had a turndown from some court," said Mr. Chadwick, who had repeatedly sought release over the years. He said he kept his spirits up helping others with their legal issues.

For more than six years, Mr. Malloy worked pro bono on the case.

"I always thought if I could take this to a jury, he would have been home in a week," said Mr. Malloy.

When Mr. Chadwick's son, William, 41, walked into the office, the two embraced.

"It was so tough to keep up hopes at these hearings," said William Chadwick.

"We were concentrating so much on getting him out, we haven't thought what we'd do immediately afterward."

Beatty Chadwick will stay at his son's house in King of Prussia until he can set up his own apartment. He has no firm plans beyond that.

"I have to get out and make a living," said Mr. Chadwick, who has no income other than Social Security.

He is considering possibly teaching, trying to see what he can do in a corporate advisory role, and he will try to get his law license reinstated.

"I'm really thinking about what I'm going to do with the rest of my life," Mr. Chadwick said.

He would like to use his "skills and talent and time" to benefit others.

As Mr. Chadwick walked outside to transfer his belongings into his son's Prius, a man driving a car along Veteran's Square in Media honked, cheered and gave the thumbs-up sign, all while hanging out the car window.

"Good job, buddy," said the former fellow inmate, who declined to give his name. "You deserve to be out."

First published on July 11, 2009 at 12:00 am Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09192/983301-454.stm#ixzz1G2jYoJrz

UPDATING SOME OLD POSTS

Some of our readers have requested that we update some old posts. Therefore, over the course of the next few weeks, we will be concentrating on updating old posts rather than posting new material. One of the first posts we will make relates to the man who was jailed fourteen (14) years for contempt. After that post is made, we will take our cues from the comments we receive.

SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE LACK OF AN AUTOMATED CHILD SUPPORT TRACKING SYSTEM

In a nutshell, South Carolina has been fined over $80 Million for failure to install computerized child support collection and tracking systems in compliance with federal law.

This is one of our favorite topics. So not only have we written dozens of letters and e-mails to the folks who have the power to fix the problem, but we write about the problem extensively on this Blog. For example, you may want to read SOUTH CAROLINA DSS FINES MOUNT, S.C. FINE: $82,858,661 AND COUNTING, UNDERSTANDING THE CUMULATIVE NATIONAL CHILD SUPPORT DEBT, MAJOR FEDERAL FUNDING AT RISK IN SOUTH CAROLINA, LINKS TO THE COMPLETE RESPONSES OF SC DSS TO BUDGET PROVISOS REGARDING COMPUTERIZED CHILD SUPPORT TRACKING AND COLLECTION SYSTEM, and HOW DO SEVENTY THOUSAND PEOPLE MANAGE TO SECRET THEMSELVES IN A STATE THE SIZE OF SOUTH CAROLINA?

The bottom line is that, because (apparent) lifetime appointee Larry McKeown will not, or can not, perform his (well-paid) job and the General Assembly has ignored funded federal mandates, South Carolina custodial parents and guardians are owed over $1.5 Billion in back child support and approximately 70,000 South Carolina parents are skirting their legal support obligations and passing them on to the taxpayers of the entire United States.

Interestingly, though former South Carolina AG Henry McMaster issued an Opinion that found that South Carolina laws making nonsupport of children a crime are lawful, to our knowledge his office never prosecuted a single non-support case. Additionally, when faced with the prospect of a $28 Million DSS budget deficit, rather than taking steps to increase child support collections so that custodial parents could get off of "welfare," the General Assembly chose to cut support to those parents.

Click here to access South Carolina attorney Cindy M. Floyd's explanation of the process of Collaborative Family Law.

The South Dakota House passed a Shared Parenting bill. House Bill 1255 passed the floor by a vote of 53-16. The bill then went to the Senate for a hearing on March 2. We will update readers on the progress of this bill as information becomes available to us.

Maryland House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on HB1132, another shared parenting bill. Ten of the twenty-two members of the committee were bill cosponsors. Testimony lasted for three hours and can be accessed here.

Click here to access the Child Support Dockets Database for Chatham County Georgia. By searching the database by name, month, year, and/or judge, users can review a list of all those people in Chatham County who have either failed to pay or failed to maintain payments on their child support obligations.

We are certain that Chatham County Georgia is not the only county in the United States that maintains this type of database. However, we were surprised to learn that the Savannah Morning News provides a link to the database on its on-line edition. This service has to help increase the child support collection rate in Savannah. So we have to wonder why a similar system has not been instituted in Charleston South Carolina.