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For Torrance photographer Taron James, a decorated veteran of
Operation Northern Watch, Veterans Day always brings mixed
emotions.
James enlisted in the Navy at age 20 in the days leading up to
the first Persian Gulf War, and carried out hazardous
reconnaissance missions behind Iraqi lines in the war's
aftermath.
He earned four service medals and three ribbons before his
honorable discharge in 1994. Yet his reward for his service has
been nine years of unremitting government harassment, financial
deprivation, and a constant struggle to stay out of jail.
"Sometimes it's hard to feel much pride on Veterans Day," he
says.
"Sometimes I just feel like a sucker. Veterans Day only reminds
me that my government holds me and other vets in such contempt
that it cannot lift a finger to stop a blatant fraud which
victimizes tens of thousands of servicemen. Worse, the
government actively enforces that fraud."
While serving in Iraq, James was notified that a woman he knew
back home was demanding that he pay child support for her
newborn son. James knew from the beginning that the child could
not possibly be his.
The Navy's Judge Advocate General is not authorized to handle a
serviceman's legal problems outside of the military justice
system, but a sympathetic captain helped him obtain an agreement
from the child's mother for a DNA test.
Before the test could be done, however, the mother reneged on
the agreement and disappeared with the child.
James requested a blood test from the Los Angeles County
District Attorney's office, and was told repeatedly over the
next year and a half that he would be notified when there was a
new development in the case. The D.A. instead went to court
without James' knowledge and obtained a default judgment against
him. James did not find out about it until the D.A. seized his
driver's license and began taking 50 percent of his take home
pay.
Despite subsequent legal appeals and an April, 2001 DNA test
which confirmed that the child is not his, the courts have
refused to set aside the judgment. In the years since the D.A.
and later Los Angeles County Child Support Services have: seized
James' tax refund for six years in a row; blocked him from
renewing his notary public license, which in turn caused him to
lose his job as the manager of a business; ruined his credit,
denying him the chance to purchase the business at a low price
when the owner offered it to him for sale; blocked him from
obtaining a passport; and forced him to drop out of college
before finishing his degree.
James' problem is not uncommon. According to Carnell Smith,
Executive Director of the National Family Justice Association,
military men such as James are often "preyed upon" by
unscrupulous "father shoppers" who can make fraudulent paternity
designations without penalty.
"The military provides (a mother) a steady, easily garnished
income as well as medical care for the baby. It's hard to
contest paternity when you're thousands of miles away and losing
a good chunk of your income to child support," he says.
"Sometimes the time limit for contesting runs out and the guy
ends up on the hook for 18 years of child support simply because
he served his country."
The solution to the problem is paternity fraud legislation of
the type enacted in Illinois, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio and other
states. This legislation allows putative fathers more time and
greater judicial flexibility in challenging paternity findings.
Similar legislation in California was vetoed last fall by Gov.
Gray Davis, and a revised paternity fraud bill, SB 1030, passed
the Senate 34-2 in June but is currently stalled in the
Assembly.
James has joined with 600 other victimized veterans and their
families to form the Los Angeles-based activist group Veterans
Fighting Paternity Fraud.
"The problems we face wouldn't be hard for the government to
solve if someone gave a damn," he says. "Every Veterans Day and
Memorial Day I think the same thing -- we don't need parades and
speeches -- we need justice."
This column first appeared in the
Daily Breeze
[Los Angeles] (11/11/03).
Glenn
Sacks' columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of America's
largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website at
www.GlennSacks.com or
via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
Jeff
Leving is one of America's most prominent family law
attorneys. He is the author of
Fathers'
Rights: Hard-hitting and Fair Advice for Every Father Involved
in a Custody Dispute. Visit his website at
www.DadsRights.com.
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