upcoming hearing

[rtwins]

Dear Soc,

My husband had a hearing to answer contempt charges for cs arrears that have accrued over the past three years.

We were going pro se and had documents to prove several reasons and circumstances that led to the arrearages.
          health reasons
          a decrease in amount of work available(self employed, seasonal)
          slight error in cs calculations
          a step parent adoption agreement ( if you remember, I posted to you about this several times. It was just a private agreement drafted by her attorney to forgive all arrears, we were advised it would hold no protection for us so we did not sign but requested that she file through probate court first.
         
     Also, last week at a seperate hearing with cs, we were granted a downward mod. The new amount is being based on income figures from 1995. We were not told the new amount but feel that we should be entitled to some retroactive credit either from 1995 or at least from the point adoption was offered.

Those were all the issues we wanted to present that day.

The prosecutor spoke with my husband before the hearing and listened to what he was preparing to say. She said she was not able to address all the issues, just those pertaining to the arrears. From our point of view, they all pertained.

She gave him three options:

   He could plead guilty and she would suspend sentencing for 6 months,if at that time he shows he has made timely payments, sentencing will be dismissed. No one knew what the support amount would be. the old one or the new one just last week(has not been filed yet)

   Or he could go in to the hearing and try to present his own case

  Or they will appoint him an attorney

We chose the attorney. We have to call Monday to make arrangements to see him.

Questions

1. Will the atty(because he is appointed) be allowed to present our case the way we want or will he just deal with the arrearages?

2. We still want to get some kind of ruling about the legality of that adoption thing. Any suggestions? We were informed last week by BM that she and step dad are no longer seeking for adoption

My husband is also contemplating to request a grant to be relinquished from his parental rights We still want to put the screws to her for this adoption fiasco. It really did mess him up for a few months because we relied on her and her atty word.

Thanks again Soc

[socrateaser]

>Questions
>
>1. Will the atty(because he is appointed) be allowed to
>present our case the way we want or will he just deal with the
>arrearages?

You're gonna get a public defender who will attempt to get you to plea bargain, because he/she won't have the time or inclination to give you any consideration more than the absolute minimum.

Your custody and support issues are completely seperate -- you cannot ordinarily raise non-payment of support because of a denial of custody. If, however you could prove that you relied to your detriment on the other party having verbally agreed to sign the adoption documents and waiving your arrears, that could get you a waiver of the arrears that built up during that time period -- but no prior arrears. I think this would be nearly impossible to prove.

Avoiding the contempt is a singular matter of proving that your failure to pay was not willful. If you can prove that you were disabled, or involuntarily unemployed and that you had no assets or borrowing power available to make payments, then you could avoid the contempt. Otherwise you will lose. What the court will order is unknown -- it depends on your ability to work/pay.

>
>2. We still want to get some kind of ruling about the legality
>of that adoption thing. Any suggestions? We were informed last
>week by BM that she and step dad are no longer seeking for
>adoption

They probably never were seeking it. They simply wanted to try to steal your custody rights and make you pay simulaneously -- which is what I originally told you. If you could prove that the entire negotiation was begun to frustrate your access to the child, that could get you a contempt sanction against the other parent, but once again, proving this would be pretty tough.

>
>My husband is also contemplating to request a grant to be
>relinquished from his parental rights We still want to put the
>screws to her for this adoption fiasco. It really did mess him
>up for a few months because we relied on her and her atty
>word.

No court will take your parental rights in return for a waiver of support or arrears. We talked about this all before.