Support Magistrate Elizabeth Shamahs

I’ve never really thought about it.

And although not exactly on point, the August 24, 2017 decision of Kings County Family Court Judge Javier E. Vargas in S.G v. B.G. sheds light on some of the issues a court may face when a child support payor his being “hidden.”

The parties were married in May 1993, and had two now-emancipated children. The father had been a successful diamond dealer and jeweler; the mother was a homemaker and caretaker of the children. In 2002, the parties divorced under a judgment that had incorporated a Separation Agreement. The father was to pay child support of $4,004.60 per month, as well as the children’s insurance, tuition and other educational expenses.

The father complied with his child support obligations until 2008 when he was arrested for fraud in “massive gem heists.” He was incarcerated between 2008 and 2011. Upon his release in May, 2011 until May 2014, the father apparently cooperated with the United States government and was purportedly placed in a safe house by the U.S. Witness Protection Program, under which he had assumed a new identity in another state.Continue Reading When the Child Support Payor is in the Witness Protection Program