From: "Carnell - Director"  <director at paternityfraud.com>

To: ALL

Subject: June letter-writing campaign to US Justice Dept. about Paternity Fraud

Date: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 1:03 AM

This Information must bring national focus to the national epidemic of 30% Paternity Fraud among men that are DNA tested, are found innocent.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

June 2001

To NCFM letter-writing committee members, non-NCFM members are encouraged to participate as well.

This month we will write to the U.S. Justice Department to protest state court decisions that force men to pay child support even when DNA tests prove they are not the biological fathers.

A recent example of this type of ruling is a Texas man ordered by the court to continue support payments and whose visitation rights were rescinded when the judge thought that the children should not know the truth about their lineage. Another recent example occurred in Georgia, where an attorney sued his former wife after DNA tests cleared him of paternity. But the man found neither sympathy nor relief from the court, which ruled last month he continue support payments of more than $1,000 a month.

After the trial, the man said: "Everybody talks about 'deadbeat dads,' but nothing is ever said about fraudulent moms."

Here are four points to consider in your letters:

1) No man should be forced to pay child support or to take expensive legal action when DNA tests show the children are not his. But because very few states have laws that protect men from child-support fraud, we need action on the national level.

2) State governments cannot be trusted to act equitably. For example, a bill addressing false paternity claims was approved last year by the Georgia House, 163-0, but never made it out of a senate committee when a member claimed the bill was "too open-ended."

3) Further, DNA tests clear nearly one out of every three men who contest paternity when named as fathers by women applying for state assistance. As a necessary deterrent, women must be held financially and criminally liable for this fraud.

4) Equal protection is guaranteed under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA II), passed last year, violates these provisions. Legal costs and child-support reimbursement for men in false paternity cases could be taken from VAWA funds.

Send your letters to: 

U.S. Department of Justice 

Daniel Bryant,

Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs  

950 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. 

Main Justice Building, Room 1537 

Washington D.C. 20530.

Yours in the cause,

Mike Spaniola, chairman

NCFM letter-writing Committee