AK Cop Arrested on Fed. Charges Gets Child Support Hearing
Alaska child support case summary on income determination.
Father v. Mother: Alaska appellate decision
The mother and father in this Alaska case were married in 2004 and had two children, born in 2006 and 2010. They were divorced in 2016 after reaching an agreement calling for shared legal custody and alternating weeks of physical custody. The mother was ordered to pay child support. The mother moved to modify custody in 2017, and the wife was granted sole legal custody. The alternating physical custody remained in place.
Shortly thereafter, the state Office of Children’s Services (OCS) removed the children from the father’s home. A court then granted OCS temporary custody, and the agency placed the children with the mother. The mother then moved to change the child support obligation. Under the new order, the father was required to pay about $2,400 per month.
The father was then indicted by a federal grand jury and placed under house arrest. According to news accounts, he was indicted on August 17, 2017 of three counts of sexual exploitation of a child – possession of child pornography. After the indictment, the father resigned from his job as a law enforcement officer for the Chichaloon Tribal Police Department.
In November of that year, the father moved to modify his child support. He argued that the house arrest resulted in a substantial reduction in his income. His only income was the $5,722 he expected from his rental properties.
The trial court denied the motion. It first noted that the father was relying on predictions of business loss that were speculative. Also, since the motion contained no affidavit, there was insufficient evidence to make informed calculations. Also, the father’s motion had not addressed the issue of whether the unemployment was voluntary or unreasonable and whether or not it was temporary. The father filed for reconsideration. The mother opposed, and one of her arguments was that the unemployment was only temporary, based upon the father’s claim that he would be acquitted. The father’s motion was denied.
The mother later received sole custody and was permitted to move to Arizona. The father was ordered to pay child support of $2,420 per month, based upon an adjusted income of about $60,000. He made one more motion to modify and then appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court.
The father got some sympathy from the high court. It held that the evidence might not have been sufficient to warrant a change, but it was at least enough to warrant a hearing. His income had gone from over $50,000 to under $13,000, which was far more than the 15% threshold for considering material change of circumstances.
The high court expressed no opinion as to whether the house arrest constituted involuntary unemployment. The lower court made no findings on this issue, so it was not before the supreme court. However, the high court reminded the lower court that it should make relevant factual findings on this issue.
For these reasons, the supreme court reversed the lower court’s ruling and remanded the case.
No. S-17138 (Alaska Aug. 9, 2019).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Child Support Modification in Tennessee | How to Modify Child Support.
See also Tennessee Parenting Plans and Child Support Worksheets: Building a Constructive Future for Your Family featuring actual examples of parenting plans and child support worksheets from real cases available on Amazon.com.
