THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 2, 1995 TAG: 9508020445
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Federico L. Ampey and modern science fought centuries of law Tuesday. The law won.
A judge ordered Ampey, a Norfolk sheriff's deputy, to continue paying $153 in child support every two weeks for a 16-year-old girl, despite a recent DNA test - accepted as accurate by the judge, opposing lawyers and the girl's family - that proved he wasn't her father.
``I'm not happy at all,'' a disgusted Ampey said outside the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District courtroom.
``No offense to the child. Or to the mother. I don't feel like there's any real justice going on here.''
Just or not, the situation certainly flips on its head the more-common problem of not being able to make real fathers support their real children.
Tuesday's ruling was based on centuries-old legal doctrines that you can't retry issues or facts that already have been properly decided in court - the doctrines of ``res judicata'' and ``collateral estoppel.''
Judge William P. Williams ruled that the paternity finding against the 37-year-old Ampey was made properly at the time - January 1992 - and that Ampey had ample opportunity and knowledge to contest it. The judge also noted that Ampey identified himself as the girl's father on some court documents before and after the 1992 paternity hearing.
``Orders have to have some sense of finality,'' Williams said before ruling against Ampey. ``They govern lives, and people have to know that they can rely on them.
``If Mr. Ampey's claim to be the father of this child has done some damage to him, I'm sorry. My heart goes out to him.''
But, the judge added, ``Two hundred years of jurisprudence'' takes precedence.
Ampey said he's been trying to overturn the paternity ruling and child-support order from the beginning. A brief affair with the young mother ended a year or more before the girl was born, and he denied being her father from the start even as his own parents treated her as a grandchild.
The mother slipped into a comalike state almost six years ago during a subsequent childbirth. Only then did the mother's family start seeking child support from Ampey.
He said he's been hampered by not knowing the legal system and not having the money to hire a lawyer. He also said he was surprised by the paternity proceedings against him and intimidated by judges and court personnel into signing things he didn't read. In 1993, he purposely called himself the girl's father on adoption papers he signed for the girl's aunt and uncle, hoping to end his child-support obligation that way. But the adoption never went through.
``It just seemed that everywhere I turned I didn't get any help,'' Ampey told the judge Tuesday.
He asked the court in November to order the genetics test and paid the $256 fee himself. In April, Williams accepted its conclusion that he wasn't the girl's father, but postponed until Tuesday the hearing on ending child support.
It turned out that the DNA test didn't matter.
Lawyers for the Virginia Division of Child Support Enforcement, the girl and her mother all argued for keeping the support payments, based on the legal precedents.
``He may not be the natural father,'' said Richard Zahn, representing the mother, ``but he is the legal father.''
``He got a raw deal - that's what it boils down to,'' said Everett C. Meixel, a Virginia Beach lawyer who donated his services to Ampey after reading about his child-support battle in the newspaper.
``Does that mean every time we have a mother who can't identify the father, we just go out and pick someone?'' he argued to the judge. ``Because we know he's not the father!''
Afterward, Meixel was angry. ``I think the judge made it clear that `any dad'll do ya,' '' he said.
Before a previous hearing, Meixel had described Ampey as a victim. ``I think the system just got hold of him and wouldn't let go,'' he said. ``I just feel sorry for the guy.''
The girl wasn't in court Tuesday. After years of being shuttled from relative to relative here and overseas, she's now in the custody of Norfolk's Division of Social Services.
This summer, the agency placed her in a girls home, where she'll receive counseling. A troubled child, she recently was retained in ninth grade, where she had problems in the classroom but liked to dance, played French horn in band class and lettered on the track team.
Rosita L. Parham, an aunt and former guardian of the girl, doesn't hold Ampey's battle against him.
``I would hope he gets his stuff straight,'' she said before the previous court proceeding. ``It's not right to have to take care of a girl who's not yours.''
Asked what he would do differently if he had it to do over again, Ampey answered, ``Never go to court without an attorney.''
He and his lawyer said they'll discuss whether to appeal Tuesday's decision.
Appeal or no, Ampey is due back in court Sept. 26. The judge has a question as to whether the child support Ampey was paying to one relative of the girl was reaching the relatives who actually were caring for her. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by BETH BERGMAN, Staff
Federico L. Ampey, left, confers with his lawyer, Everett C. Meixel,
outside court Tuesday. Meixel donated his services to Ampey after
reading about his child-support battle in the newspaper.
KEYWORDS: CHILD SUPPORT PATERNITY by CNB