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630-580-6373630-580-6373Kwame Harris, former San Francisco 49ers right tackle, has been charged with felony domestic violence and assault charges for beating his former boyfriend, the Huffington Post reported on January 28. His trial will start in April. 
Harris, 30, had a fight with his boyfriend outside a Menlo Park restaurant in August. The boyfriend, Dimitri Geier, suffered many facial fractures in the fight and had to undergo surgery. Harris has been charged with domestic violence because he used to live with Geier and they had an on-and-off romantic relationship. “Whenever we move forward with charges, it's because we believe the evidence is sufficient,” Assistant District Attorney Al Serrato said. “Certainly the injuries are consistent with a serious assault.” Harris admits that he had a relationship with Geier, but claims that he hit Geier in self-defense. He had pleaded not guilty. According to his defense, it was Geier who started the fight and Harris had every right to defend himself. It was unfortunate that Geier got injured in the altercation. While a few former NFL players have come out as gay, none have done so while still actively playing. Harris, who was drafted by the 49ers in 2003, is open about his sexuality, but he is a private person who is not in the habit of talking about his personal life in public. Domestic violence affects both men and women alike regardless of their sexual orientation. Domestic abuse can have serious consequences for victims’ health and life. If you or someone you know has suffered because of domestic violence, you should get help immediately. Contact a dedicated Illinois divorce attorney today.
First a birth certificate must be produced and have the questioned man listed as father. This documentation is the first step to proving paternity. It shows acknowledgement as well as the fact that the child has the same surname as the father. This can be proof enough in some states for paternity. Another good form of proof is if the father claimed the child under his taxes as a dependent. All of these can satisfy some or all requirements for paternity in certain states.
Just because the child looks like the father in question is not proof that he is the father. A DNA sample has to be gathered to officially determine paternity in some states. It could have been taken during a procedure while the father was still alive. If, however, none was taken while he was alive, the next best solution would be to get a DNA sample from the father’s closest relatives. Higher probability goes to his parents or other children he had. Have testing done with either of those samples to compare to the child’s in a DNA lab.
If you are in a situation where paternity is in question and it affects your child’s well being and future, contact a family attorney knowledgeable with paternity disputes in the Illinois area.
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It may seem impossible in the throes of divorce to ever imagine forgiving your ex for the emotional pain and possible hardship caused in the failed relationship. The most important aspect in a divorce to moving on from the pain and starting a new life is to find a way to forgive your ex, and allow yourself some distance and reflection from the mess. One easy way to do this is to seek the counsel of a qualified divorce attorney, who can help you sort through the nuts and bolts of a divorce so you’re more able to deal with the emotional fallout. According to the Examiner, “forgiveness is not reconciliation. Reconciliation is a different step that may or may not happen. But forgiveness is crucial.” This high ideal isn’t just an acceptance of an apology, but a rooting deep within to find the peace it takes to release someone form the pain he or she has caused you. Forgiveness is the first step to a good divorce—the next is to try to make sure that you’re both on board with the process as it begins. Many couples seek therapy at the end of their marriage for help going through a divorce. According to the Independent, “professional counselors no longer necessarily aim to glue you both back together like a broken vase. They want what is best for both of you, and they may help both of you to deal with the divorce in a more rational and civilized way.” This is especially true if one party isn’t quite ready to call it quits. If you or someone you know is going through a divorce, don’t do it alone. A qualified attorney can help you to sort out the logistics, so you’re able to focus on getting your life back together. Contact a dedicated Illinois divorce attorney today. Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
A Hayward, WI, man may find that probation stipulations put on him, for past due child support violations, by a family court judge could make it difficult for him to get a date. John J. Butler, 28, must reveal within three minutes of meeting any female that he is a convicted felon and has unpaid child support. According to this article, Butler has been ordered not to father any more children until all his past due child support is paid. Butler owes $23,000 in back child support for his two children. He earlier pleaded guilty to felony charges of failing to pay support for more than 120 days in 2011. According to WEAU News he also has a long history with the courts, including cases involving drugs, domestic violence, and drinking and driving. The judge said Butler must maintain full-time employment, pay his child support, undergo counseling and stay sober. Other family court judges have handed down similar stipulations in back child support cases. Corey Curtis, a 44 year-old Racine, WI father owes $90,000 in back child support. Curtis has nine children with six different women. At his recent sentencing for bail jumping and failure to pay child support, a judge told Boyle he was not allowed to have a tenth child until he can afford to take care of the nine he already has. If you are having a difficult time collecting child support that is owed to your children, contact an Illinois family law attorney to see what legal options may be available to you and your family.
While you cannot protect your children from the fact that you and their other parent are getting divorce, you can shelter them to some degree from the negative aspects of divorce that can be damaging to them. Keep in mind that your children will be hurt by your divorce no matter how much you try to protect them. However, it is possible to minimize those feelings of hurt and loss by modifying your own behavior to some degree and putting the interests of your children first – even before your own interests.
Although co-parenting with an ex-spouse can be difficult during the best of times, it can be unimaginable when you are in the throes of divorce proceedings. Before you engage in yet another argument with your soon-to-be-ex, realize that despite how you feel about him or her right now, he or she is, and will always be, your child’s other parent. As a result, a recent Huffington Post article stresses the responsibility of divorcing parents to foster the relationship between the child and the other parent.
Here are some important guidelines that can help you be a better divorcing parent:
There are several different aspects of divorce that have to be considered if divorce is on the table, but the most complicated issues deal with how the split will affect children if the divorcees are parents. Conventional wisdom is that divorce has the potential to ruin a child’s understanding of intimacy, and can leave him or her feeling lost, or without anchor. More recent studies show that if the marriage was wrought with conflict, divorce may actually be better for the kids. According to Psychology Today, this is more truth than the former. University of Nebraska sociologist Paul Amato has recently released a study in which he followed 2,000 families for nearly two decades. “If there has been lots of conflict in the marriage, the children actually do better if there is a divorce,” he told Psychology Today. Yet the hardest hit in a divorce, according to Amato and reported in the magazine, “are the children of marriages in which there were not high levels of hostility before a break-up. The husband and wife just didn’t drift along and the kids don’t notice anything’s missing.” For these kids, the dissolution of the marriage, rendering them adrift between two homes, floating, per-se, between both parents, is an unwelcome disturbance rather than a culmination of an already-disturbed childhood. Amato believes that “low-conflict divorce undermines kids’ sense of trust and causes them great psychological distress as they grow older.” It’s these kids, not all children of divorce, who have difficulty forming trusting relationships later in life, and are “particularly unhappy” as adults. It’s likely because, for the child, there was nothing visibly wrong. Children, of course, are unable to grasp the lower frequency wavelengths of their parents’ relationships, and so are unable to see how divorce could have been better for their parents if they weren’t visibly unhappy. Bringing a third party into a divorce, in the way of a qualified attorney, can help a family to sort out the difficult situations such as this. Don’t go through it alone. Contact a dedicated Chicago-area family law attorney today. Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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