Citizens Against Paternity Fraud
Decatur, Georgia 30034-1853
August 10, 2001

Allison Giles, Chief of Staff
Committee on Ways and Means
U.S. House of Representatives
1102 Longworth House Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Honorable Allison Giles:

I write to you to include our comments in the record for the upcoming "Hearing on Child Support and Fatherhood Proposals sponsored by Congressman Wally Herger (R-CA), Chairman, Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means.

We specifically would like to address the increasing and confirmed reports of child support fraud also known as the "Paternity Fraud Trap" in the Title IV-D section of the Social Security Act as it regards to:

Establishment of paternity - no requirements for accurate establishment.

Contested Paternity - DNA evidence that confirms non-paternity and deception by mothers is disregarded to extort money, property and assets from non-paternal man under the color of law.

The current system has virtually no safeguards to restrict access to federal money incentives to the those states that have default judgments, acknowledgement of paternity at hospitals while the man has no legal representation nor proof of paternity (predatory practice) and falsified paternity affidavits from mothers.

The states that want federal money have met the requirement to obtain large numbers of established paternity (by any means possible) and the appearance of increased collections (even from parents that were already meeting their obligations to custodial parents). But most of these states do not provide a means of relief for "Paternity Fraud Victims", and actively jail and extort money from these men after confirming non-paternity using DNA or blood testing.

We propose that the current system be revised to provide financial incentives to states that honest and accurate paternity establishments while preventing fraudulent mothers from collecting child support from any non-paternal man father unless child is result of written agreement for artificial insemination or legal adoption after notice requirements are met to the biological father. While insuring that constitutional rights of alleged fathers are not violated during the process of establishing and dis-establishing paternity.

Respectfully yours,

Carnell A. Smith
Founder & Director

When mothers are the victims of maternity fraud aka baby switching, does anyone say the real biological mother should just forget about her child and go on her merry way?

(July 31, 1998, AP Story Charlottesville, VA "Custody Petition Filed in Switched Babies Case" The problem was not discovered until a paternity test revealed no biological connection to the mother nor the alleged father in a child support case - Exhibit 1). NO, in fact this problem of baby switching / kidnapping has forced the entire Hospital and Birth Industry to change it's practices (Feb 23, 1999 CNN/AP story, Orange, CA "Baby-Switch Hospital plans electronic security", "The mix-up was not an isolated incident, but part of a systemwide problem" Exhibit 2).

In many cases, the guilty parties have been held accountable for their actions -- some have been fired, sued or settled out-of-court and finally the biological mother is reunited with her biological child.

When men are routinely released from jail / prison that were innocent of rape or murder using DNA testing, why is justice denied for paternity fraud victims using DNA?

The national paternity fraud rate of men tested was 28% in 1999 and 30% in 2000 per the annual Parentage testing report from the American Association of Blood Banks mentioned on CBS News Early Show TV reports on 4/18/2001. This trend is going the wrong way!

The Georgia Appellate court (Georgia Department of Human Resources v. Pinter, 241 Ga.App. 10, 525 S.E.2d 715 (Ga.App. 11/18/1999) [Exhibit 3] says, "it is not the policy of this state to extort money from men who are not the fathers". This is great in theory but it is not applied in most Georgia courtrooms nor in other states.

The national media refers to men like Carnell Smith as "Duped Dads" (The complications for 'duped dads' By Ellen Goodman, Globe Columnist, 4/29/2001 Exhibit 4), but rarely is anything said about the root cause of paternity fraud (fraudulent mothers).

According to the Georgia Deputy Director of DHR (Robert Swain), "30% of the 45,000" (May 2, 2001, Creative Loafing Atlanta "Who's your daddy? Paternity fraud foes make their pitch for reform"BY GREG LAND - Exhibit 5) Georgia mothers named the wrong man with ZERO consequences.

We believe that men would ask for a DNA test, if he knew there were other potential fathers. The mother is the only party that knows (100% certainty) of her other intimate relations near the conception date before saying "you’re the father" to the alleged father. This is where Fraud begins!

What is your official position on including protections against child support fraud and paternity fraud in HR-6? If against, please state why?

What is your official position on requiring mothers to make full disclosure of all potential fathers to the alleged father in all divorce and child support cases? This would limit surprises later by DNA tests. There must be consequences for any concealment of material facts, deliberate or accidental.

What is your official position to require mandatory DNA testing immediately after birth? This is a pro-active solution that stops the paternity fraud problem, exposes the truth and restores parity to the paternity establishment process.

The paternity fraud victim finds that it is extremely difficult to prevail against the child support system that has one goal "collect maximum dollars" regardless of actual paternity, make him choose between pay or go to jail and NEVER hold the fraudulent mother responsible for her actions.

Paternity fraud victims, their wives, fiancé’s or girlfriends with the same question "what can I do?" are contacting me with increasing frequency. The victims of this great nation deserve an answer that our duly elected officials are equally concerned about protecting our constitutional rights.

What shall we tell the people?

EXHIBIT 1

Custody Petition Filed in Switched Babies Case

By The Associated Press

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) -- The maternal grandparents of a 3-year-old girl who was switched at birth are seeking sole custody in a bid to deny visitation to the child's biological mother, relatives say. The custody petition filed in juvenile court involves Rebecca Grace Chittum, who was taken home from the University of Virginia Medical Center and raised by Kevin Chittum and Whitney Rogers.

Two of Chittum's sisters, Roxane Cullen and Pamela Miskovsky, said Wednesday that the petition was filed this week by Tommy and Linda Rogers, the divorced parents of Ms. Rogers who now help raise Rebecca.

Tests have determined that Rebecca is actually the biological daughter of Paula Johnson, who gave birth about the same time as Ms. Rogers. Ms. Johnson returned from the hospital with Callie Conley and raised the infant as her child. DNA testing has revealed that Callie's biological parents are Rogers and Chittum. The couple died in a July 4 car wreck shortly before their families learned of the switch in June 1995.

The switch was discovered in blood tests ordered for a child-support case brought by Ms. Johnson. Since then, the families involved have met, and the two girls have played together.

Both families have said they want Callie and Rebecca to stay with the families who raised them, and each suggested liberal visitation rights for both sides. But Ms. Cullen said in today's Daily Progress that she believes the Rogerses want sole custody "to block any visitation with Paula Johnson." She said the relationship among the families has deteriorated.

Other family members could not be reached for comment by the paper. Police and state health investigators are investigating how the baby switch happened. The hospital has since added new security measures.

EXHIBIT 2

CNN - Baby-switch hospital plans electronic security - February 23, 1999

Baby-switch hospital plans electronic security

Parents Iliano Bravo and Brian Lambert were given the wrong newborn to take home on February 14

    On February 14, new parents Iliana Bravo and Brian Lambert were allowed to leave the Orange County hospital with the wrong child, while their son Aaron was given to another mother.

    It was the other mother who first noticed the mistake.

    The mix-up was not an isolated incident, but part of a systemwide problem, according to hospital president Larry Ainsworth. He said there have been three other accidental switches in the last year, but the mistakes were straightened out before the babies left the hospital.

    The two nurses responsible for February 14 incident have been fired. The hospital is under investigation by California medical authorities for the baby switches.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

RELATED STORIES:

Nurse error cited in switched baby case
February 16, 1999
Genetic test confirms half of Virginia baby switch
August 18, 1998
Family authorizes genetic test in baby switching case
August 6, 1998
Families of switched babies seek custody solution
August 4, 1998
Switched babies may stay put
August 4, 1998
Babies switched at birth: On purpose or accident?
July 31, 1998

 

EXHIBIT 3

Georgia Department of Human Resources v. Pinter, 241 Ga.App. 10, 525 S.E.2d 715 (Ga.App. 11/18/1999)

Georgia Court of Appeals
A99A1600; 241 Ga.App. 10, 525 S.E.2d 715, 1999.GA.0043710
November 18, 1999

G. ALAN BLACKBURN, Presiding Judge, specially Concurring.

I write to point out the absurdity of the present state of the law that requires a putative father to pay child support after he has scientifically proven that he is not the biological father. As I stated in Smith v. Department of Human Resources, 226 Ga. App. 491, 493 (487 SE2d 94) (1997), "the law should not punish a purported father for failing to insist on a paternity test when he has no reason to believe that he is not the father."

Not only has the putative father been cuckolded, the law adds injury to insult by requiring him to pay child support even after he establishes that he is not the biological father.

Once non-paternity is scientifically established, courts cannot ignore such fact by relying on policies developed when no such proof was possible. To create a fiction in this matter does not make the male the biological father of the child; it simply makes him the victim of the law. It also makes an ass of the law.

While the courts may preach their false policy, they lose the respect of any citizen with common sense. The legislature should address this issue.

EXHIBIT 4

The complications for 'duped dads'
By Ellen Goodman, Globe Columnist, 4/29/2001

IF HE WERE in jail for mass murder, he would have been sprung by now. After all, the DNA evidence proved that he was the wrong man.

So how come a man who has been proven scientifically not to be the biological father must go on paying child support? How come the same DNA test that can force one man into paternal obligation can't automatically free another?

This week, a Massachusetts man joined a fraternity that now has members as far flung as Florida and Texas, Georgia and Ohio. They are known in the media lingo as duped dads.

These are men who discovered that the children they believed were their biological offspring were not. And then they discovered that in some courts, DNA is not necessarily destiny. There is really little new about duped dads. Throughout literary history, the man tricked into raising another's child was a stock figure of cuckolded buffoonery. But in the eyes of the law, the husband in any marriage was legally the father.

Now biological certainty intrudes into legal precedent and new scientific tests produce new legal tests. In the fallout of divorce and child support, courts are being asked to decide what's fair for men and what's best for children. And they are also being asked what exactly makes a man a father.

Life, it turns out, is nowhere nearly as clear-cut as biology. In the Massachusetts case, the unwed father had passed up the chance for a DNA test. He signed on the dotted paternity line when Cheryl was born. Over many years and despite many suspicions - rumors and infertility problems in a later marriage - he was called ''daddy'' and acted as one. His parents were her grandparents, and twice he sought more rights to visitation. In short, as the court noted, ''Cheryl grew to know and to rely on him as her father, and he enjoyed her love and companionship.'' Only after the mother asked for more money did he take the DNA test and head to court.

But the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided that he was too late to resign from fatherhood as if it were genehood. ''No judgment can force him to continue to nurture his relationship with Cheryl,'' acknowledged the justices in a unanimous decision, ''or to protect her from whatever assumptions she may have about her father. But we can protect her financial security and other legal rights.''

This ''victory'' for the child is cast as a defeat for the man. The duped dads lawsuits are, after all, brought into courtrooms under the flag of men's rights. They are testing men's rights to cut their fatherhood ties and responsibilities.

As men cry fraud, several states have either passed or are considering laws that would automatically end a man's child support obligation. A South Dakota court ruled that a deceived man should be reimbursed by the woman.

EXHIBIT 5

NEWS | FEATURE
Who’s your daddy?
Paternity fraud foes make their pitch for reform
BY GREG LAND

An ancient Chinese parable recounts the tale of Hakuin, a Zen master who was presented with a child by a young village woman who claimed he was the father. "Is that so?" replied Hakuin who, saying no more, took the infant and cared for it. One year later, the child’s mother confessed that the father was, in fact, a young fisherman. When her abashed parents went to Hakuin’s house to reclaim the child and apologize, the monk’s response was, again, "Is that so?"

Zen tales are wont to conclude with, "and he (or she) was enlightened."

A bit of high-tech enlightenment for an age-old dilemma was on the minds of those at a hearing last week on legislation targeting "paternity fraud." The hearing offered several local men—and women—the opportunity to rail against a system which frequently forces men to pay for the upkeep of children they may not have fathered, and whom are often barred from even seeking a DNA test to answer that very question.

"The judge refused to allow me to have DNA testing done at all," says Buddy Everhart, a software consultant who currently pays $2,500 in monthly child-support for five children. "Even though my ex-wife and her boyfriend admitted on the stand that two of those children may not be mine, the court said, ‘You will pay.’ "

The issue is even thornier for men who think they’ve fathered out-of-wedlock children and agree to pay support, only to find out later that another man is actually the father. Carnell Smith, director of Citizens Against Paternity Fraud, says some women actively decide whom to name as father on the basis of income.

"So then," says Smith, "the question becomes, ‘How did [she] pick me?’ " Such a deception, says Smith, "is the very definition of fraud."

Earlier this year, Rep. Stan Watson, D-Decatur, sponsored a bill that would allow presumed fathers to seek legal permission to conduct DNA testing to determine actual paternity. Under the bill, if such tests proved that someone else fathered the child, the presumed father would be able to stop paying further support, and might also be let of the hook for lapsed or unpaid support. (Watson’s bill does not include provisions forcing restitution of previously paid support, but he does plan to introduce companion legislation mandating penalties for women who knowingly misidentify their children’s fathers.)

It would also remove the courtroom stumbling block that Everhart tripped over; under current law, any of several actions—signing a birth certificate as the "father," acknowledging paternity in child-support affidavit, marrying a woman to whom one has been paying child support, and so forth -- provide a "strong presumption of legitimacy" that even direct evidence may not overturn.

The number of people affected by paternity fraud is potentially enormous. CAPF’s Smith points to figures provided by a company that performs DNA screening for the Georgia Child Support Enforcement Administration showing that, of 9,650 paternity screenings performed last year, 2,919 men -- 30.2 percent—had been erroneously identified as the father.

"We use DNA to convict or free criminal suspects all the time," he says. "Why not free these men from paying for children that aren’t theirs?"

The Georgia Department of Human Resources, which oversees child-support enforcement efforts, seems to agree. DHR Deputy Director Robert Swain says studies confirm that, of the 35,000-to-40,000 unwed Georgia mothers who fill out affidavits of paternity each year do, about 30 percent name the wrong man as father. Swain sees Watson’s bill as a potential tool in helping ensure that children are properly supported.

"The bill, although not perfect, is not one we’ll complain about," says Swain.

Even so, while the legislation easily passed the House, its progress halted when it got to the Senate.

There, Sen. Charles Tanksley, R-Marietta, chairman of the Special Judiciary Committee, found himself troubled by a couple of points. "My concern was that it virtually did away with any kind of closure on this sort of issue. ... It allowed a challenge at any time, regardless of whatever other agreements might have taken place prior to that. The bill that the House sent over had no limitation period at all."

Tanksley notes that Texas, for instance, has a statute which allows one year for a challenge to a paternity claim. Under the Watson bill, Tankley says, "one could decide—for any number of reasons, many years later—to go back and retroactively undo whatever had been done in the past, whether in good faith or bad faith."

He also thinks the law should include provisions for men who may have knowingly shouldered a parental responsibility in the past, but later decide to rescind that commitment.

A decision by Massachusetts’ Supreme Court last week illustrates just how such limitations may impact future paternity suits. When a man had his 5-year-old daughter DNA tested and found that he was not the father, a lower court said he could stop making payments. But the state’s high court reversed, ruling that he’d waited too long to challenge paternity.

Tanksley has appointed a subcommittee to study and recommend some changes to the legislation, but Watson is adamantly opposed to any further limitation. "Under state law, we have to take care of a child until the child is 18; [Tanksley] wants to go in and put a limitation on the time that can pass before you can go in and get a DNA test. That’s not fair."

For Vickie McLennan, a lobbyist for several Georgia affiliates of the National Organization for Women, paternity fraud is an important issue but, she says, Watson’s bill needs to be carefully studied. "I understand how somebody who might’ve gotten stuck with support [payments] by some girl who slept with three guys a night then said, ‘Oh, this one’s making good money. I’ll make him the daddy,’ would be angry, and would want action taken. I would," she says. "But this is an elephant gun to deal with a very narrow issue. It does need to have a deliberative process."

Maybe so. But the folks who cheered Smith’s description of current law as "involuntary servitude" that tosses men into "debtor’s prison" begrudge every day they’re asked to wait. In fact, the only light note during last week’s hearing was struck when Rep. Henrietta Turnquest, D-Decatur, popped in to express her support. As she left, she wagged a finger at the assemblage.

"You single men out there, you know what you need to do," she said. "You do right, now."

And the mood—for a moment—was enlightened.