PATERNITY FRAUD RAMPANT IN U.S.

WASHINGTON – More than three years ago, a Maine district court judge ruled that Geoffrey Fisher no longer had to pay child support for a child that wasn’t his.

But that didn’t stop the state from revoking Fisher’s driver’s license and coming after him for thousands of dollars it says he owes in back payments.

Last year, Maine sent Fisher, 35, a letter seeking $11,450 in child support, even though officials know that DNA tests proved he isn’t the father of the child in question.

As the nation experiences an unprecedented increase in unwed motherhood, more men are finding themselves named as “fathers,” for purposes of child support, simply because of their ability to pay, say several recent studies.

It’s called “paternity fraud,” and one state that examined the problem found as many as 30 percent of those paying child support were, indeed, not the biological fathers of the children being supported.

The most recent comprehensive study took place in New Hampshire under the auspices of the Commission on the Status of Men.

The commission found that even men who later were able to prove they were paying support for the children of other men were sometimes still forced by courts and state agencies to continue.

“Paternity fraud is a growing concern for men and children everywhere,” concluded the commission in a report completed in November. “It can spawn considerable grief for the men who may or may not be emotionally attached to a child they later discover was fathered by another; and possibly unsettling for children who may discover the false nature of their paternity.”

The New Hampshire commission took note of the case of Geoffrey Fisher.

Fisher had a brief relationship with a woman eight years ago and when she got pregnant and told him he was the father, he believed her. He began paying child support but eventually fell behind.

In the summer of 2001, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services took him to court because of delinquent payments. The court ordered him to pay up, and the state had his license suspended under the “deadbeat dad” law.

That fall the girl, then 3, was placed in foster care. When Fisher pushed for custody, the state ordered a paternity test, which proved he wasn’t the father.

At that point, one branch of the human services department told him he could no longer see the girl because he wasn’t the father, while another said he owed $10,000 and couldn’t have a driver’s license because he was the father.

Fisher thought the matter resolved when a judge ruled he no longer had to pay child support in January 2002.

But then last spring, the Maine attorney general’s office claimed Fisher still owed support payments for the time from the child’s birth until she reached 3 years old, when tests proved Fisher was not the father.

“Paternity fraud is a growing problem for both men, who should have a higher level of confidence on the paternity of their children, and for the children who need a reliable history of both parents for the maintenance of their physical and emotional health,” concluded the New Hampshire commission.

A paternity fraud expert, says that 30 percent of the cases he sampled proved negative.

Like New Hampshire, California has also established a commission to explore the problem, based on reports that 14 percent are being misnamed as fathers. A report is expected later this year.

Florida is about to pass a new law that would end child support if a man proves he’s not the father. Like most states, Florida currently requires that child support – once legally established – continue until the child’s 18th birthday, regardless of who the real biological father is. Eleven states have changed similar laws since 1994.

A new state law took effect in Colorado this year that permits men, for the first time, to challenge his paternity of alleged offspring – at least during the proceedings of a divorce, separation or child-support action. However, once a final order is entered, the new law says, the man is barred from presenting evidence of non-paternity.

But there is also a problem with the way some DNA tests are conducted and analyzed, say experts.

For instance, one physician reported that two unrelated men – one black, the other white – both tested with a probability of paternity at 99 percent for the same child.

“Despite testing facility claims of a 99 percent accuracy rate, all men are at risk, whether it’s through a wrong paternity judgment or paternity fraud,” says Darrin Bush. “There is a chance that a man can be determined to be the father of a child even if he never had relations with the mother. The deck appears to be stacked against men.”

Mary Kellett must go VAMA

When Children Are Better Off Fatherless

The 24 million American sons and daughters growing up without fathers are not all doomed. Nor are the children of lesbian parents. Nor the children whose fathers were killed in the line of duty as policemen, firemen, soldiers. Nor the children who have lost fathers to disease, accidents or suicide. Our society must be careful not to assume these sons and daughters are damned.

In the cases where the father is far from heroic – even abusive – his absence is also the absence of the chaos, anger, pain and disruption he would bring to his family. Americans encourage women to leave abusive partners, but mothers who do this end up in a class we shame and pity. The government itself sends the message that children are better off with a father. The reality is, many children are better off without their fathers.

Michael Lamb, a Cambridge psychologist, wrote in 2010, “We think it is misguided to see increased paternal involvement as a universally desirable goal.” Certainly it is optimal to have two parents who love and nurture their children, but rather than insist that all men can be good fathers, we should fill the lives of children with love and support from untraditional directions.

In the 2013 book “Fathers in Cultural Context,” Joseph Pleck of the University of Illinois writes: “The notion that fathering is essential to children’s social and personality development seems to be a uniquely American preoccupation. Current research actually provides little support for … this popular conception of paternal essentiality.”

The myth is personal to my family, because I raised my sons as a single mother. And they are not doomed because of that. Now men at 24, 22 and 19, I talk to them about successful men who have grown up without a father: President Obama and Bill Clinton, for two easy examples. I could also mention Aristotle, John Hancock, Gerald Ford, Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglas, Stephen King and a fraternity of other historical heroes … but I don’t want to overdo it.

In time for Father’s Day movie bonding, Will Smith stars in “After Earth” with his real-life son, Jaden. But a 1994 episode of “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” shows a much younger Will Smith in a scene that is more real to many American boys. The Smith character’s father runs out on a promise to take his son on a trip, and Smith shouts: “I’m gonna get through college without him. I’m gonna get a great job without him and marry me a beautiful honey and have me a whole bunch of kids. And I’m gonna be a better father than he ever was.” And then he chokes, “How come he don’t want me, man?”

I know there is no possible answer to that question. But I also know it is time to stop damning the children who need to ask.

8 Reasons Straight Men Don't Want To Get Married

It seems that fewer and fewer people in general are getting married these days, and even fewer men seem interested. Men no longer see marriage as being as important as they did even 15 years ago. "According to Pew Research Center, the share of women ages eighteen to thirty-four that say having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in their lives rose nine percentage points since 1997--from 28 percent to 37%. For men, the opposite occurred. The share voicing this opinion dropped, from 35 percent to 29 percent." Why?

In the course of researching my new book,  I talked with men all over America about why they're avoiding marriage. It turns out that the problem isn't that men are immature, or lazy. Instead, they're responding rationally to the incentives in today's society. Here are some of the answers I found.

1. You'll lose respect. A couple of generations ago, a man wasn't considered fully adult until he was married with kids. But today, fathers are figures of fun more than figures of respect: The schlubby guy with the flowered diaper bag at the mall, or one of the endless array of buffoonish TV dads in sitcoms and commercials. In today's culture, father never knows best. It's no better in the news media. As communications professor James Macnamara reports, "by volume, 69 percent of mass media reporting and commentary on men was unfavorable, compared with just 12 percent favorable and 19 percent neutral or balanced."

2. You'll lose out on sex. Married men have more sex than single men, on average - but much less than men who are cohabiting with their partners outside of marriage, especially as time goes on. Research even suggests that married women are more likely to gain weight than women who are cohabiting without marriage. A article mentioned one study that followed 2,737 people for six years and found that cohabiters said they were happier and more confident than married couples and singles.

3. You'll lose friends. "Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine." That's an old song, but it's true. When married, men's ties with friends from school and work tend to fade. Although both men and women lose friends after marriage, it tends to affect men's self-esteem more, perhaps because men tend to be less social in general.

4. You'll lose space. We hear a lot about men retreating to their "man caves," but why do they retreat? Because they've lost the battle for the rest of the house. The Art of Manliness blog mourns "The Decline of Male Space," and notes that the development of suburban lifestyles, intended to bring the family together, resulted in the elimination of male spaces in the main part of the house, and the exile of men to attics, garages, basements - the least desirable part of the home. As a commenter to the post observes: "There was no sadder scene to a movie than in 'Juno' when married guy Jason Bateman realized that in his entire huge, house, he had only a large closet to keep all the stuff he loved in. That hit me like a punch in the face."

5. You could lose your kids, and your money. And they may not even be your kids. Lots of men I spoke with were keenly aware of the dangers of divorce, and worried that if they were married and it went sour, the woman might take everything, including the kids. Other men were concerned that they might wind up paying child support for kids who aren't even theirs - a very real possibility in many states. I polled over 3200 men to ask how they would react to finding out that a child wasn't theirs after all. 32 percent said they would feel "anger and fury at the mother," 6 percent said they would feel "depression," 18 percent said "anger and depression," 2 percent said "none of the above," 32 percent said "angry at the system that forced them to pay," and only 2 percent "didn't care." One man commented that his ex-wife had taunted him with the knowledge that his 11-year old son wasn't actually his: "I was angry at the mother...I severed all ties to the boy. Some may see this as a failing. I see it as self-preservation, and to those that ask the question of whether or not the courts will make a non-biological parent pay child support, pay attention: YES THEY WILL! They see you as nothing more than a source of cash for the child. It seems that a person in these situations should be able to sue the real father for child support."

6. You'll lose in court. Men often complain that the family court legal system is stacked against them, and in fact it seems to be. Women gain custody and child support the majority of the time, as pointed out in this  News article: "Despite the increases in men seeking and receiving alimony, advocates warn against linking the trend to equality in the courtroom. Family court judges still tend to favor women, said Ned Holstein, the founder of Fathers & Families, a group advocating family court reform. "'Family court still gives custody overwhelmingly to mothers, child support overwhelmingly to mothers, and courts still give almony overwhelmingly to mothers and women,' he said. 'The family courts came into existence years ago in order to give things to mothers that mothers needed," he said. 'The times have changed and the courts have not.'"

7. You'll lose your freedom. At least, if you're charged with child support that you can't pay, you can be put in jail - and if you can't afford a lawyer, you don't have the right to have one appointed because, according to the Supreme Court, it's technically a civil matter, never mind the jail time. Fathers and Families found that it's the men who are jailed rather than women: "A new report concludes that between 95% and 98.5% of all incarcerations in Massachusetts sentenced from the Massachusetts Probate and Family Courts from 2001 through 2011 have been men. Moreover, this percentage may be increasing, with an average of 94.5% from 2001 to 2008, and 96.2% from 2009 through 2011. It is likely that most of these incarcerations are for incomplete payment of child support. Further analysis suggests that women who fail to pay all of their child support are incarcerated only one-eighth as often as men with similar violations."

8. Single life is better than ever. While the value of marriage to men has declined, the quality of single life has improved. Single men were once looked on with suspicion, passed over for promotion for important jobs, which usually valued "stable family men," and often subjected to social opprobrium. It was hard to have a love life that wasn't aimed at marriage, and premarital sex was risky and frowned upon. Now, no one looks askance at the single lifestyle, dating is easy, and employers probably prefer employees with no conflicting family responsibilities. Plus, video games, cable TV, and the Internet provide entertainment that didn't used to be available. Is this good for society? Probably not, as falling birth rates and increasing single-motherhood demonstrate. But people respond to incentives. If you want more men to marry, it needs to be a more attractive proposition.

3/3 Sex with women on false promise of marriage is considered as Rape

2/3 Sex with women on false promise of marriage is considered as Rape

1/3 Consensual Sex with women on false promise of marriage considered as Rape

Forest department slaps criminal case against woman for ‘false’ sexual harassment complaint

Prey turns predator? If a departmental inquiry by the forest department is the last word in a sexual harassment case, the woman, a receptionist at the government-run Jungle Lodges and Resorts (JLR) who made the allegations against her immediate boss, had cooked up the entire story. 
The tables have turned in such a way that the managing director of JLR has now filed a criminal complaint which could land her in the slammer.

The incident occurred in September 2012, and the woman lodged a complaint with the city police commissioner on January 1, 2013. A copy of her complaint was sent to the secretary, forest, environment and ecology department, who in turn forwarded it to the MD of JLR.

In her petition, the woman had levelled serious charges of sexual harassment against Deputy Conservator of Forest (DCF) and well-known wildlife photographer K M B Prasad. Taking serious note of the complaint, the JLR management instituted an internal inquiry by a divisional manager in February. The inquiry was conducted over four months and 17 witnesses were examined. It gave a clean chit to the DCF and concluded that the complainant had tried to tarnish the image of her male colleague by making false allegations.

Following the report, the JLR management lodged a criminal complaint against the receptionist at High Grounds police station on June 5, accusing her of forgery and defamation. If the charges against her are proved, the woman, who quit her job on January 31, will have to spend a minimum of three years in prison.

“The truth has come out in the 8departmental inquiry,” Prasad told Bangalore Mirror . “This should not happen to any government official. I am thankful to the department which ordered a probe to check the veracity of the complaint before acting on it.”

In her complaint, the woman had stated: “Around 4.30 pm on September 8, 2012, I went to the table of Sri Murali, accountant of our office, to get his signature on a conveyance voucher. K M B Prasad was also present. When I was talking to Sri Murali and getting his signature on the voucher, K M B Prasad patted me on the lower back and gave me an embarrassing (sic) look. I scolded him and being 8frightened, I ran with the file to my place of work, but before that I told him I would complain to the police. K M B Prasad said he would finish me if I did so.”

The JLR MD, on receiving a copy of her petition, asked divisional manager Khaleel Ahmed to probe the allegations. Ahmed is said to have spoken to 17 witnesses, as well as examined mobile calls and the mobile locations (when the incident was said to have occurred). 

The probe found that the allegations did not hold water. Firstly, September 8, the day of the alleged incident, was a second Saturday, and the complainant was not present at the workplace. This was backed by attendance records. Three employees too told the probe panel that the complainant was not present at the Khanija Bhavan headquarters at Race Course Road. Besides, it was found that Prasad had worked at the M G Road office on that day.

Also, as per official records no voucher was signed by the employee — Murali — named in the petition. Cellphone records also went against the complainant. Going by her mobile’s signals, she was at Srinagar that day. And Prasad's mobile showed he was located near the Museum Road tower.

Over 10 witnesses either said they had not seen the DCF at the HQ or that no such incident took place on September 8. Two staffers also provided an alibi for Prasad, saying they were present with him at his M G Road office and he had dropped them at Malleshwaram in his car. 

During the course of the probe, the complainant is said to have changed the date of the incident and said it actually took place on September 7. 
The departmental inquiry took this factor into consideration and found that though she had worked in the office for extra hours on September 7, she had presented the conveyance voucher on September 10. It was passed on September 12. The investigation officer concluded that as the receptionist had worked between 5.30 pm and 6.30 pm on September 7, the question of presenting the voucher around 4.30 pm, two hours prior to completion of work, did not arise.

It was found that she had changed the dates in her voucher — from September 8, to September 7 and , later, September 10 — raising doubts of voucher-tampering.

Another six witnesses said they had not seen the DCF at the head office on September 7 either. It was found that the DCF had gone to the forensic laboratory. He later went to the M G Road office. In his report submitted on May 15, Ahmed gave a clean chit to the DCF and concluded that the allegations of sexual harassment were false.

“The inquiry found that no such incident took place either on September 8 or September 7. The charges made are far from the truth. Further, it was found that the woman had tampered the vouchers. This amounts to a criminal act. Hence, legal action against her is recommended,” Khaleel Ahmed said in his report.
 

The JLR then lodged a criminal case under various sections of Indian Penal Code which include sections 182 (giving false information), 465, 469 and 471 (forgery to tarnish image). A senior police officer told Bangalore Mirror that probe into the case was on.

 

‘They can now twist the story’

“I left the job on January 31 itself. They can now twist the story however they want. I will not know whatever happens within the office. They did not conduct an inquiry till the day I was there. They are doing everything only after I left. If you are in front of me I can talk,” the complainant told the media.

Now, Shankar Rao in dowry row

June 19, 2013

HYDERABAD: Former minister andSecunderabad Cantonment legislator PShankarRao's daughter-in-law VamsiPriya on Tuesday approached the AP High Court with a writ petition seeking the arrest of her her husbandShashank, father-in-law ShankarRao, mother-in-law VishwaShanti and sister-in-law Sushmita.

Charging them with harassing her and treating her in an inhuman way and the police with inaction, Vamsi Priya sought a direction to the police to act on her complaint forthwith. Earlier, a criminal court directed the accused legislator, his wife, daughter and son to surrender before the police and surrender the passports to avail bail. But that did not happen. Police too did not act because they are scared of acting against a bigwig like Shankar Rao, the petitioner said.

According to the complaint, Shankar Rao's daughter-in-law returned to her parents house after parting ways with her husband and it was only from then the problems for Vamsi Priya started. She sought the immediate arrest of Shankar Rao and his family members.

NDTV: Why Marital Property Division Law Must not be Draconian.