ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 9, 1997 TAG: 9702100121
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BOSTON
SOURCE: The Boston Globe
In a decision that blunts the impact of the 1992 federal law aimed at parents who owe child support, an appeals court has ruled that the federal government cannot garnishee the wages of deadbeat parents.
It is believed to be the first time any federal appellate court has ruled on the legality of the federal government seizing money from the paychecks of deadbeat parents to recoup child support.
Ruling in a case involving a Michigan surgeon - the first person ever convicted in Massachusetts under the 5-year-old law - the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday that the federal government has no authority to collect debts owed to a private party.
``In this case, the government is not the holder of the debt in any legally cognizable sense, and it seeks to collect restitution not to its own behoof but for the benefit of a private party,'' Judge Bruce Selya wrote.
The court did, however, uphold the constitutionality of the law and Dr. Frank Bongiorno's November 1995 conviction for not paying $220,000 in child support to his daughter, now 12 and living in Worcester, Mass.
This is the first time that the federal appellate court here has ruled on the constitutionality of the 1992 Child Support Recovery Act, which has been upheld in federal appellate courts in at least three states.
Bongiorno had not only challenged his conviction - which resulted in his spending a year's worth of nights and weekends in federal prison and being ordered to pay the child support he owed - but he also challenged the government's authority to garnishee his wages in Michigan to recoup the back child support.
About $3,000 had been garnisheed from Bongiorno's wages in Michigan, where he has worked for the Michigan prison system and more recently as an emergency room doctor.
While working for the prison system, he earned $128,000 a year, according to court testimony, and before that he made $200,000 a year working for a Michigan hospital.
In argument before the appeals court in December, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Alberto said that the federal government had an interest in collecting restitution in child support cases because public welfare programs are used to support children who are collectively owed $5 billion a year in child support.
Bongiorno's daughter is not on welfare, however, the appeals court pointed out.
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