Judge Javier E. Vargas

Four recent decisions address the issue of whether “stay at home” orders and the generalized pandemic threat are sufficient to deprive a child of regular and meaningful personal contact with both parents.

No, held Bronx County Family Court Judge Ariel D. Chesler on May 7, 2020 in Matter of S.V. v. A.J.

A generalized fear of the coronavirus crisis we all face is insufficient to severely limit and perhaps harm a child’s relationship with a parent.

There, the parties were the parents 4- and 2-year-old children who lived primarily with their mother. Prior to the father’s current application, numerous Family Court petitions had been filed. However, no temporary or final custody orders had been entered. A January 16, 2020 order granted the father alternate weekend visitation. Moreover, a Criminal Court final Order of Protection directed the father to stay away from the mother. As a result, the children were being exchanged at a police precinct.

The visitation order had been followed until the New York and New Jersey quarantine orders were issued. Then, the mother unilaterally decided not to produce the children for three alternate weekend visits beginning March 27th. In response, the parties arranged through their attorneys for daily video conference visits to take place between the father and the children. However, when further efforts by the parties to resolve the issue failed, the father petitioned the court to enforce the temporary order schedule, schedule makeup visits, and to direct daily video conferences.Continue Reading Visitation in These COVID-19 Times

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