Gulled by Rotten Tomatoes, I recently watched a movie that started with teenagers using the Internet to turn their bodies into cash that ultimately ending up in violence (see Teenage Cocktail movie proves that “and they’re gay” is to plots as “in bed” is to fortunes?).
“Girl, 15, shoots would-be Beaverton sugar daddy, authorities say” (The Oregonian) is almost the same story, minus the same-sex romance:
A Vancouver teen is suspected of shooting a Beaverton man she targeted on a dating website where “sugar daddies” lavish young love interests with cash and other gifts in exchange for companionship, according to Washington County authorities.
Raelyn Domingo, 15, faces first-degree assault and robbery charges after investigators say she arrived at Thomas Licata’s suburban home last week, got high with her host and then fired a single bullet into his belly.
Licata, a married 56-year-old, said he recently met the teen on the Seeking Arrangement website, which boasts its “Sugar Babies and Sugar Daddies … both get what they want, when they want it,” according to a probable cause affidavit.
What if the 15-year-old had gotten pregnant with a high-income user of SeekingArrangement.com?
- Oregon family law (total child support revenue of more than $1.6 million is difficult to obtain)
- Washington State family law (child support potentially capped at only about $450,000)
- California family law (unlimited child support profits available)
Child support wouldn’t really be relevant, because as soon as it became part of the public record that the high-income father had gotten an 15 year old pregnant he’d become unemployable, with a nontrivial chance of being murdered by religious fanatics.
Ken: At least in Massachusetts, child support lawsuits between unmarried parties are sealed and none of the records are available to the public. It is also common for abortions to be sold at a discount to the net present value of the expected child support cashflow. See http://www.realworlddivorce.com/ChildSupportLitigationWithoutMarriage (abortion sales are private transactions, though I guess these days there is no stigma for making public a sex-for-cash transaction)
It doesn’t matter, because there’s no way to conduct a lawsuit without identifying the father to the court. The father would then be arrested and (given the existence of a child and DNA testing) inevitably convicted for his Shariah violation, at which point his name would go on the very public “sex offender registry.”
Ken: I think the systems function independently. See http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-12-22/features/9612220045_1_pay-child-support-child-support-behalf (“Statutory Rape Victim Ordered To Pay Child Support”) for example. Or https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/02/statutory-rape-victim-child-support/14953965/
But, in any case, in a state such as California where the guideline amount can be calculated to unlimited amounts on a Web form, why would the 15-year-old have to go to court at all? She can just notify her potential defendant of the possibility of a child support lawsuit and wouldn’t he be better off paying it? Even if he goes to prison his child support obligation remains in effect and the plaintiff can collect it from whatever savings he and his wife had accumulated (if the wife sues for divorce and child support, she would be second in line for the cash).
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermesmann_v._Seyer : a precedent-setting Kansas, United States case in which Colleen Hermesmann successfully argued that a woman is entitled to sue the father of her child for child support even if conception occurred as a result of a criminal act committed by the woman
My point is that the very act of suing would lead to the high income father losing his income, making a child support lawsuit pointless. The blackmail scenario would, indeed, make much more sense for the hypothetical mother.
Did Mr. Seyer try to get 100% custody, given that the other parent was a rapist?