Jadzia Riker asked:


OK, before anyone jumps on me for being an unfit mother, hear my story.

When I was 19 years old my then-husband and I split up. I had no job and no permanent place to live, so he and I agreed that he should hold onto our one-year-old daughter (whom we’ll call Katy… she’s almost 7 now) until I was set up in a stable living situation. He has never sued me for child support. We have always been friends. If he needed money for her or even for himself, he would come straight to me about it and I’d do what I could to help him out. I visited our daughter regularly; we had joint, equal custody.

Six months down the line I achieved a stable living situation and asked that we start trading her off with each other. However, by this time her paternal grandmother, whom my ex lived with, started guilt-tripping him and me, saying Katy was happy at home and would be traumatized if we changed her living arrangement. Background info on Grandma: she used to try to scheme up ways to get foster kids so the state would pay her money. She was always Machiavellian and all about the $$$. Katy is no exception.

Pretty soon she started slamming the door in my face when I’d come to visit, and my ex wasn’t allowed to take Katy out of the house. I was no longer allowed to see my daughter. I was waiting for him to move out of the house with Katy so I could be her mom again.

Grandma went to court unbeknownst to me one day and claimed no one had seen me for the last few years. She blackmailed Dad into backing up the story. The judge took custody away from me and gave it to Dad and Grandma. I wasn’t there to defend myself because they’d had the summons mailed to an old address of mine which they knew damn well I didn’t live at anymore. I didn’t find out about it until a year later, when the following events took place:

Grandma put a restraining order on Dad with a bunch of lies about domestic violence. He refused to stay away from Katy so he came home to sleep; she called the cops on him and put him in jail for five months. I showed up to court asking for Katy and they told me I didn’t have custody. SO, grandma went and put a restraining order on Dad ON BEHALF OF KATY saying he was an abusive father. They gave it to her. He was no longer allowed to see Katy. All a part of Grandma’s plan.

When he got out I lent him my apartment for 2 months. Then he talked Grandma into letting him come back. The restraining orders still stood but there was nothing he could do about it. He had to stay there against the law if he wanted to see Katy. So Grandma proceeded to sue him AND me for child support even though he lived there with his daughter and paid 100% of all her expenses, as well as rent to his mother. He couldn’t do anything lest she send him back to jail for violating the restraining order. He now makes about 50K/year, so he’s paying her an arm and a leg.

Now, here are my questions. First off, I’m on probation for a DUI from 5 years ago (I was just sentenced a couple of weeks ago) and one of the stipulations is I have to pay any child support I owe. I’ve owed this woman fraudulent child support since she got it put on me a year ago, but I haven’t paid her a DIME because she is not spending a DIME or a MINUTE on my daughter! Her father takes care of her!! But now if I don’t give that satanic witch her money I could go to jail.

I want to know A) what I have to pay her, and how (my child support was calculated on minimum wage plus two years of arrears, in the state of Florida. They haven’t garnished my wages yet.);
B) what I can do to cancel this whole fraudulent child support order of hers; and
C) how Dad and I can regain control of this situation, take back our daughter and get out from this demonic schemester’s grasp.

Please let me remind you that if he says or does anything against Grandma, she can put him in jail for violating the restraining orders because he lives there still.
If I’d had money for an attorney, don’t you think I would have gotten one years ago? Grandma can afford the best attorney in town. I can’t afford even the worst.

Lucy