jail time

[rtwins]

Dear Soc

Three months ago my husband went to court on a contempt charge for not paying support.

He had been paying but not the full amount because of financial reasons. A modification was also being sought at this time.

The agreement back then was that he make the modified payments on time, for the next three months, and there would be no jail time.

During the three months, his ex received notice from IRS that she owes for the injured spouse claim that I filed for last year. She was fit to be tied and demanded that he pay her back that money. She brought her complaint up with the CS agency.

When my husband went to court last week, he brought all his payment receipts and figured everything was going to be ok.

The magistrate said that my husband had made an agreement to make a lump sum payment according to CS and if he didn't have it he was getting jail time.

He wasn't interested that his payments had been made on time, only that there were 4 women from CS that claimed he  made this agreement.

No way did he agree to anything like that because we don't have any kind of lump sum of money. No one in court could even give him the amount, that's why this sounded kinda fishy.

He has a public defender, who didn't have much to say in his defense.
We have tried to reach him the past three days and he is not returning our calls.

It is possible that a relative could help him out if he really owes this money.

He is getting 30 days starting July23. We have gone through paperwork from the last court hearing and there is no mention of any lump sum being owed.

1. Is it too late to try and fight this because the magistrate already sentenced him?

2. Since we aren't having any luck with the public defender, how can we bring this to the courts attention and keep him out of jail?

[socrateaser]

You write of varios "agreements" that were made. A court order is not an agreement. It's an order. You can stipulate (agree) to the entry of an order, but it's still an order.

So, if your husband made some side agreements with anyone and they weren't ordered by the court, then they are worthless.

What has the court/magistrate ORDERED, and did your husband violate the ORDER or not?

BTW, you could move to set aside the incarceration order, on grounds that you have paid all arrears in full, assuming you can, but there's no guarantee, either way.