California parents and all others throughout the nation who are bound to existing court orders must make payments to financially provide for their children when required to do so. While it is true that extenuating circumstances sometimes make child support payments infeasible, it is not true that a parent may simply stop making payments when he or she decides it’s necessary. Payment delinquency is subject to legal punishment as a father in another state recently learned the hard way.
The 38-year old man was recently sentenced to five years in jail, although the court suspended it all. The man, a father who failed to make child support payments for six years, will serve three years of supervised probation and two additional years, unsupervised. He pleaded guilty to the charge against him.
The judge overseeing the case ordered the man to pay more than $16,000 due to his failure to financially support his child under court order. The judge stated the court’s intent to make sure the mother and her child are rightfully compensated for the man’s failure to fulfill his parental obligations. Similar situations do not always include guilty pleas, as some parents say they have been wrongfully accused of delinquency.
If a parent is ordered to make payments and loses a job or faces some other circumstance that renders him or her unable to fulfill the obligation, a formal modification of an existing court order can be requested. However, it is never okay to simply stop making payments without the court’s permission. California family law attorneys often help parents pursue justice in unpaid child support situations.
Source: ago.state.ms.us, “Father pleads guilty to not paying child support for 6 years”, May 2, 2018