10 kids by 8 women: ex-NBA player's child support woes
Yesterday, “Nancy Grace” did a segment on former NBA player Jason Caffey and his child support suits and bankruptcy. The report is Caffey owes over $400,000 in child support payments for 10 children by 8 different women in 5 different states. And I guess these are the ones, as Nancy put it "that we know about." According to Grace, bankruptcy doesn't exempt a parent from paying child support.
They reported that he claims $11,000 as his monthly income and pays out almost $7,000 per month. Caffey, over the span of his eight-year career played professional basketball for the Chicago Bulls, the Bucks, and Warriors, they estimated his annual salary to be at least $5 Million per year, and he retired five years ago.
His college sweetheart and mother of his first child was on the show. It looks as if she has moved on, because she was photo’d in what appeared to be a wedding gown with a man, and perhaps a family photo with the guy, and a young boy. She reported when he worked, he paid his child support. After he retired, payments were inconsistent. This is one mother. He claims after retirement, he does not make the same income, and should not have to make the same payments.
Nancy gets into what she calls his string of businesses that he is reported to have, and one of her guests talks about him having had supposedly having a history of a "mental illness—social anxiety disorder." What it has to do with payments, who knows? Several obvious issues are in play, besides the one of responsibility. However, is this too logical---when you are changing jobs or moving from a certain income level to a lesser level, doesn’t the parent go into court and say in the beginning, “I can’t afford these payments?” I don't know what his situation was, because I have not followed his story.
No one knows all the financial details, but they had some of his financial information on supersoakerstyle blast. It looked like snippets of an annual report statement up on the screen. I mean WOW. I must really be out of the loop, because I thought people stopped having so many kids-here-there-everywhere. Anyway, a whole lotta dynamics are working this issue. Listen to audio clip
you can only hope he is at least spending time with his children
AnOldieButAGoodie,
I agree with you on that one, because from a child's perspective, this seems to be one of the things we crave most--the time our parents spend with us. At the same time, they have to eat. And IF he was paying hefty amounts when he was making the millions annually, AND the custodial parents did not mismanage, the money, there should be plenty of funds left in reserve. I am not accusing any of the women of mismanaging money, so I am not going to set myself up for attack on that issue, because people seem to come out of the wood work to attack on an issue, as I have seen on many blogs...and I don't have that kind of energy to expend. And even if any one of those women saved every nickel or mismanaged or spent appropriately, the man still has the obligation to pay. This does not seem to be his argument. His argument, from what I understand is the payments are too high. Not commensurate with his current earnings.
The segment mainly focused on the $$ aspect and the fact that the children needed to eat. Not to make light of anything, but I just had a thought about a few years ago when one of the players maybe was in contract negotiations, being traded, or suspended or something, but he was making superstar money,(can't remember the name), however, he made the comment "I have to feed my family." The chuckle was--the millions he was offered, wasn't enough? On that point, they deserve to make, whatever they can negotiate to get compensated for, but we are talking millions of dollars. And the average person making $10/hr can give you a 1 week survival course on how to feed your family.
Just, good Lord! This is a danggone shame.
You are correct, he does need to pay child support. But what happened to all the money he paid when he was employed. What did those women do with all that money, do they work or do they use his child support payments to support their entire lifestyle. New cars, fancy clothes, etc... How many of them established a college trust for those kids? The entire child support system in the US in screwed up. Too many women think child support is all support. They are supposed to contribute to the welfare of the child also, not just being the custodial parent and expect the father to pay for them and the child's lifestyle. I'm sure they can get a job. Even if he stopped paying his support payments (which is wrong) they can't make enough money to feed their child, that's bull. What is he died tomorrow, and left no money behind or a will, what would they do. The US needs to take a look at the child support system in Germany, that is the way it should work. American women believe they should use child support to suck a man dry so they can live fat, especially when it comes to successful men (athletes, actors, etc). Finally, without condoning Jason Caffey's irresponsible behavior, you know some of those women got pregnant on purpose becasue they saw those child support dollar signs in their eyes. Remember it takes two to make a baby, so it should take two to provide for the baby, and providing is not just living in the same house with the child as the custodial parent. These women can buy food, clothes, etc,, Millions of single parents do it everyday. Parents who are single through death, divorce, etc..
lock him up. he doesn't see the children. first wrong that does the most damage and on top of that he's not paying to support these children's up bringing. He's no use to any of them or the ones we don't know about or the ones he will make in the future. Lock him up!!!
We are on the other end of this. Except that we are the ones owed child support from the ex-wife. She too, tried to file a bankrupcy to get out of paying her child support. In the meantime she was having lavish weddings and trips.Of course this ploy did not work. However, it has been over two years now and we have yet to see a dime. Child Support has not even taken her license yet. We feel that dead beat dads are unbelievable. But we feel this is also true of dead beat mothers. Especially when the justice system? seems to not work when it comes to penalizing women as they do men,and I am a woman. At least, Caffey is setting in jail. Our dead beat has, to date, had no reprocussions. No taxes taken, no jail time, and not even a drivers license taken away......We feel this is an injustice to us. And would at the very least like to see some equal justice.We also filed a judgemnet for the 5 months of child support we over paid the ex, that she would not give back to us after we recieved custody. . We have waited over two years on that too. Just last week the attorney we hired to collect on that judgement had the ex wife in to get her banking and asset info.....our atty contacted us after speaking with the ex and said she did not feel it was morally right to go after the ex for the five months of child support that was over paid. We were dumbfounded as to what could have been said to have her make that kind of judgement call without even knowing the other side of the story. She said that she felt bad that she had just filed a bankruptcy within the last year. We do not know where to turn, as we feel we have done all that we can.And yet the ex's excuses continue to work.Do you have some suggestions on who can help us?
I went to college with Jason and I always had such a crush on him I guess I'm pretty fortunate he never noticed me :)
On a more serious note, that is a lot of children. I wonder if he ever asked to have his payments reduced? Did he make any effort to meet the conditions of his child support and did he just say f-it and stop paying and let those poor children suffer.
On another serious note, all those women who get get pregnant by athelets "on purpose" thinking they are going to be on easy street they need to read this article and think again!! Just like you got pregnant so can 8 other women and I don't care how much they make, you can only slice it so many time before it runs out!!
here we go again. a football or basketball star has lots of children, then retires. Why doesn't his lawyer request a reduction in child support? For young ladies hoping their child is a meal ticket, save the money. 2 grand a month equals 24000 a year that's a salary for a teacher. the teacher lives off that pay. Also why aren't these women saving this money,they do know the star cant play for 18 years straight.