Man ordered to pay child support for child that isn't his
Carnell Alexander's ex-girlfriend named him as the father of her child in the early 1990s when a social worker told her she had to provide a name to receive income assistance. Just one problem: Alexander is not the father, as DNA testing has since proved.
Unfortunately, the State of Michigan doesn't seem to care about that little detail, and has embroiled Alexander in a paternity case for years. The DNA evidence and testimony of Alexander's ex-girlfriend both agree that he should not have to pay a dime for a child that isn't his, but Michigan insists he still owes about $30,000.
Alexander has refused to pay and has been threatened with jail time as a result. The child in question, meanwhile, is 27 years old.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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