Consequences of Intentionally Avoiding Support

Buena Park city council member, Sangjin Miller Oh, age 50, was convicted of five counts of perjury by declaration.   Between September 23, 2004 and July 20, 2009, Oh signed official DMV documents using fraudulent information on five separate occasions.  He did this to avoid paying child support to his ex-wife by hiding his assets under a false name.

    Apparently, Oh applied for a driver’s license under a different name, Robert Oh, and failed to disclose that he had previously applied for a license under a different name, as is required by law, he failed to disclose that his license had been suspended in the past, and on four other occasions, he used is fraudulently obtained license to register vehicles.   Oh is also a real estate developer.
http://www.oc-breeze.com/2014/05/31/53056_buena-park-mayor-convicted-of-perjury-to-avoid-paying-child-support/


    In California, parents have a duty to support their children.  If a judge finds that a parent has intentionally done something to change their income in an effort to reduce or avoid support, there are consequences.   The consequences include imputing income to that parent and calculating support based on what they were making, or should be making.  Additionally, once you have made false representations to a judge, it is difficult to try and regain credibility.  Depending on the circumstances, parties may also have a fiduciary duty to accurately disclose financial information to each other and to update such information if anything changes.  When signing paperwork under the penalty of perjury you are signing it under oath and it is essential that all such information you are signing to is correct.

Concealing Assets During a Divorce

A northern California man, Steven Zinnel, was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for declaring bankruptcy and hiding assets to avoid paying child support and spousal support. He was also ordered to pay a $500,000 fine and forfeit assets worth more than $2,8 million. The sentence is said to be one of the longest prison terms given for bankruptcy fraud in federal court in the Sacramento Eastern District of California.

Zinnel, the father of two teenage children, split from his wife in 1999 and had a contentious divorce. Apparently, there was a history of Zinnel concealing his assets throughout he case and afterwards in an attempt to avoid paying support.

http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_25280558/northern-california-man-who-hid-assets-avoid-paying      

In California, spouses have a fiduciary duty to disclose their complete financial information to each other. If a party’s financial situation changes (upwards or downwards), that party also has a duty to provide supplemental or amended information to the other party disclosing the change to their finances.

Spousal Support and Child Abuse

Ed Abar was convicted of raping his stepdaughter over 16 years starting when she was 9 years old. When her mother, Carol Abar, found out what was happening to her daughter, she divorced Ed. Since Carol was the higher earner, she was ordered to pay Ed spousal support of $1,300 per month. Ed spent more than a year in jail for the rapes. A judge stayed the spousal support payments when he was in jail. He is now out of jail and seeks the reinstatement of the $1,300 per month in addition to approximately $30,000 in back-pay. At the time he was sent to prison, Carol had already paid him $22,000.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/05/06/mother-forced-to-pay-spousal-support-to-man-who-raped-daughter/

It does not appear that the judge has granted Ed’s request for spousal support, but the case caught the attention of Assemblywoman, Melissa Melendez who has introduced legislation (AB 681) which would prohibit spousal support from being awarded to a spouse who has been convicted of a violent sexual felony of a child of the marriage. Currently, while domestic violence between the spouses is taken into account when determining spousal support, child abuse is not technically a factor to be considered.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/06/21/cbs2-report-inspires-legislation-that-would-prohibit-spousal-support-in-child-sex-abuse-cases/

After the Love Is Gone, After The Pink Slip Arrives...

All over the country, as the employment picture becomes gloomier, folks all over who were previously ordered, or agreed to pay moderate amounts of child and spousal support, based on their previous moderate earnings, are going back to court to modify those orders, because they no longer have the moderate earnings to pay from. As with the down-turn in economy generally, the phenomenon, noted first on the East coast, has rolled slowly westward, like a big ugly snowball. Recession, like divorce, "unsettles many of the parties' significant plans and assumptions, no matter how carefully crafted during"* better times.

Marriage of Destein (2001) 91 CA4th 1385, 1394