Arrest 14 more 'deadbeat dads'

The ongoing roundup of "deadbeat dads" by the Hudson County Sheriff's Office has led to 14 more arrests.

[Dead Beat Dad]

I was recently branded a dead beat dad yet I have been paying $350 a week for the past 3 years on a $75,000/year salary. I was unemployed for 6 months last year and finally found a job at $39,000.00/year and have been paying $200.00/week towards my child support. During my unemployment and existing arrears of $1,500.00, my total arrears have reached a high of over $5,000.00 of which I am having difficulty paying, and now found out I have a warrant for my arrest. NJ state laws are so unfair and impractical. How is my arrest going to help thisd situation in anyway. Now I can't visit NJ to see my sons because I fear being arrested. I can't reduce my child support or arrears because lawyers want $5000.00 dollars up front to begin to look into my case...the laws must change!!!!!!!!!!

[Flanders Art]

Dead Beat Dad wrote:

I was recently branded a dead beat dad yet I have been paying $350 a week for the past 3 years on a $75,000/year salary. I was unemployed for 6 months last year and finally found a job at $39,000.00/year and have been paying $200.00/week towards my child support. During my unemployment and existing arrears of $1,500.00, my total arrears have reached a high of over $5,000.00 of which I am having difficulty paying, and now found out I have a warrant for my arrest. NJ state laws are so unfair and impractical. How is my arrest going to help thisd situation in anyway. Now I can't visit NJ to see my sons because I fear being arrested. I can't reduce my child support or arrears because lawyers want $5000.00 dollars up front to begin to look into my case...the laws must change!!!!!!!!!!

In all honesty your situation is not an easy one. The NJ laws
should not be applicable to the very problems you are faced with.
There are DEAD BEAT DADS and there are dads...! From your post
you are probably, and no doubt...a GOOD DAD. BEST OF LUCK...really!

[Bruce Eden]

Who's a "deadbeat dad"? Someone who can't or won't pay child support? Who can't pay? Government, with its lapdog press, like to pick on groups of people to create animosity and divisiveness. It's time to show the government for the real "deadbeat" that it is.
The reason for this: Because judges are granting high orders and enforcing them stringently because the Federal government pays the states a federal reimbursement incentive funding (42 USC Section 658a) for amounts awarded, collected and enforced. This money goes into the state coffers, no strings attached (42 USC Section 658f). The first things paid out of state treasuries are judicial salaries and pensions and state employee salaries and pensions.
This is a major unconstitutional conflict-of-interest that has been outlawed by the US Supreme Court in Tumey v. Ohio, Ward v. Monroeville, Gibson v. Berryhill and other cases. The Supreme Court held that judges and officials (i.e., child support probation officials) who sit in judgment of cases that they have a financial interest in, are too tempted to abuse their contempt powers to jail unsuspecting litigants-taxpayers to extort/extract more and more monies out of them to increase the amount of funding, and ultimately increase their salaries and pensions.
Yet, family court judges continue to thumb their noses at the US Supreme Court mandates. This is not only contempt of the Supreme Court, but felony official misconduct by judges, who are public officials that swore an oath to uphold, support and defend the U.S. Constitution and their respective state constitution. By refusing to disqualify themselves from these cases, where they have a financial interest in the outcome of them, the Supreme Court has held that their orders are essentially null and void and have no effect or force.
Child support is a CIVIL matter. The U.S. Court of Appeals (2nd highest courts in the land) as well as the US Supreme Ct. hold that one can't be arrested on a CIVIL matter because there is no 4th Amendment probable cause that a crime has been committed to issue an arrest warrant. See, Stevens v. Rose (9th Cir. 2002), Allen v. City of Portland (9th Cir. 1995), Wooley v. City of Baton Rouge (5th Cir. 2000), Peterson v. City of Plymouth (8th Cir. 1995), Moore v. Marketplace Rest.(7th Cir. 1985), Paff v. Kaltenbach (3rd Cir. 2000). See also, U.S. v. Parker, 108 F.3d 28, 30-31 (3rd Cir. 1997)(child support a civil, commercial debt). In U.S. v. Lewko, 269 F.3d 64, 68-69 (1st Cir. 2001), the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that child support is nothing more than a common civil, commercial debt, and that it is NOT any "special kind of debt".
Bruce Eden, Civil Rights Director
DADS (Dads Against Discrimination)-NJ & NY
Constitutional law & Family law Paralegal
[e-mail]
Wayne, New Jersey