NY - Father Not Obligated to Pay Child Support, Panel Finds

It happens more often than not where the non-custodial parent has his/her child(ren) withheld - yet is still obligated to pay child support. In this case then court is saying that the non-custodial parent does not have to continue making child support payments.

New York Law Journal

A father who has been prevented from seeing his son by the child's mother should not be obligated to pay child support, a Brooklyn appeals court ruled.

The Sept. 2 decision from a panel of the Appellate Division, Second Department, in Matter of Coull v. Rottman, 2014-1516, reverses a 2014 ruling by Westchester County Family Court Judge Hal Greenwald denying Robert Coull's petition to suspend his obligation to make child support payments.

However, the panel left intact Greenwald's order denying Coull's motion to enforce his visitation rights and granting Pamela Rottman's cross-petition to suspend Coull's visitation rights for their son.

A forensic evaluator testified in Coull that Rottman's interference with a regular schedule of visitation between Coull and his son has resulted in a "pattern of alienation."

The evaluator also testified that she was unable to complete her report because the child did not appear for an interview and Rottman refused to allow her to speak with mental health providers or school officials.

Coull last visited his son in February 2010. For the next several months, he said he would go to the exchange location on visitation days, but often neither Rottman nor his son would be there. In one instance, both Rottman and the child appeared, but Rottman said the boy would not leave the car.

"Further, the record reflects that the mother, who represented herself before the Family Court, assumed an inappropriately hostile stance toward the father and witnesses who testified in his favor," the panel wrote.

Full Story: New York Law Journal

East Haven man continues to fight for visitation with his children

New Haven Register

NEW HAVEN — Jerry Mastrangelo’s new attorney has filed a motion asking a judge to clarify Mastrangelo’s right to see his three children.

During a status conference Wednesday, Superior Court Judge James Kenefick Jr. declined to rule on the motion.

Kenefick said he needs to study the four-page document, filed by attorney Louis Kiefer, to determine “whether it calls for clarification.”

Kiefer’s motion “for clarification and correction” is an attempt to pinpoint the meaning of a six-page handwritten agreement worked out during a day-long courthouse session March 18 when Norm Pattis was Mastrangelo’s attorney. Pattis has withdrawn from the case.

Full story: New Haven Register