Judge Sent Homeless Man to Jail for Failing to Support Boy Who Wasn’t His
Updated: A judge who put a homeless man in a South Georgia jail for more than a year for failing to pay the costs of supporting his “son” knew there was no biological tie.
On Wednesday, the judge released Frank Hatley after his new lawyer from the Southern Center for Human Rights made a showing that her client is indigent, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
DNA tests show that Frank Hatley is not the father of the boy for whom he assumed responsibility by reimbursing the state thousands of dollars paid in public assistance for the child, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in an earlier story.
When Hatley learned he was not the father in 2000, he went to court to be relieved of the responsibility to pay future child support, but he never got an order lifted requiring him to repay the state for public assistance, the story says.
A 2001 order signed by Cook County Superior Court Judge Dane Perkins required Hatley to reimburse the state for more than $16,000, even as it acknowledged that Hatley was not the boy’s father, the story says. Hatley made monthly payments totaling some $6,000. After losing his job last year and becoming homeless, Hatley continued to pay for a while. But after several missed payments, Perkins signed an order jailing Hatley for contempt of court, according to the account.
Hatley found a lawyer—Sarah Geraghty of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta—after the county sheriff asked for assistance. “This is a case of excessive zeal to recover money trumping common sense,” Geraghty told the Journal-Constitution.
Updated coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Homeless Man, Jailed for Failing to Support Boy Who Wasn’t His, Is Freed”
Updated on July 16 to include the judge’s ruling setting Hatley free.
