Man Over pays Child Support, And visits his son too much, Sentenced to 180 Days in Jail

[islanderjen]

254. That is very true.

As a military wife, I have seen many soldiers get divorced and have heard some horrific stories about their financial battles with their exes, both men & women. In the past decade, the Army requires soldiers who are divorcing or have divorced to set up allotments to ensure that they are paying child support. I'm not sure about the other branch of services although generally although they generally have the same guidelines when it comes to legal matters. When I got out of the Navy 10 years ago, I know that they required it as the Navy has always had higher divorce rates than other branches prior to the Iraq war. Any service member that is caught not paying child support obligations is subjected to UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) punishment. Usually that involves loss of pay and rank, (although that never made sense to me seeing as lowering their income only made matters worse) and garnishment of the wages until back pay of child support was caught up and current.

There have been cases where soldiers (most of the time it was a male) getting notices to court for failure to pay child support. There is a soldier in my husband's unit right now who was served a warrant of arrest for failure to pay child support. The MPs had to take him down to the MP station, and book him. I'm not sure if they had to turn him over to the local authorities or if they processed him through the military law enforcement, my husband wasn't specific. I do know that he spoke to the JAG (Judge Advocate General) as well as the Battalion Commander and I believe the Post Commander as well. He had to bring all his LES's (Leave Earning Statements) showing that not only was he paying child support, every 1st of the month, but it was being deposited straight into her bank account. To add to it, he's showed them text messages he would get from the ex-wife, where she would ask for more money, usually coinciding on the 15th of the month (military paydays are always the 1st and the 15th) for various reasons. He would send her the money online via Western Union and kept the confirmations along w/ all the email notifications he got letting him know that she picked up and signed for the money.

I'm not sure if the situation has been resolved yet or not, as this was something that happened recently. My husband doesn't believe the Army will punish him for it, especially if he's got proof, but the court system is another thing. And the Army has to abide by state laws.