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Cheating Wife?
It wasn't his child, but court says he must pay

BY SARA OLKON

A former Broward County man has been ordered to continue to pay child support for a child he did not father. He said his wife cheated on him; she denies it.

Richard Parker said he never suspected that his wife had been cheating on him when she got pregnant seven years ago.

When the Hollywood couple divorced in 2001, he agreed to pay her $1,200 a month in child support.

But less than two years later, when his son was 5, he says he learned the awful truth: The boy he had raised as his own wasn't his.

Parker sued his ex-wife, Margaret Parker, claiming fraud. He wanted to terminate his child-support payments and recover the money he had paid out. His court battle, so far unsuccessful, raises delicate questions about fatherhood and men's rights in an age in which it has become relatively simple to prove -- or disprove -- paternity.

For the most part, courts say the bonds of matrimony trump biology.

A Broward County judge dismissed Richard Parker's claim of fraud in January 2004, and an appeals court in November upheld the decision, effectively ending his quest for return of the child support he had paid to his ex-wife. Moreover, Parker must continue to pay $1,200 a month in support.

The court said Richard Parker should have questioned the blood line sooner -- within a year of the divorce -- if he had any doubts.

''It could have been over, and I could have been in control of my money,'' the 55-year-old dental implant salesman said of the dismissal, an outcome that didn't surprise him.

Margaret Parker, 41, insists that she never deceived her husband. She said they had trouble conceiving, so she had sex with a ''mutually agreed upon individual'' in order to get pregnant.

''He is the fraud,'' she said, describing her ex-husband as a louse, eager to dodge his responsibility.

Richard Parker, who now lives in Boston, said he didn't question his son's paternity until someone else suggested that there wasn't much of a resemblance.

''When kids are all really little, they all look the same,'' said Parker, a man of Irish and Italian ancestry. He said that both he and his son have dark hair, and that the boy has dark eyes shaped like his mother's.

But when his child was 5, his girlfriend's 90-year-old grandmother looked at a photo his father was carrying and told him that the child was certainly not his.

Parker confirmed the elderly woman's hunch with a DNA test he saw advertised on a billboard.

In June of that year, he sued his ex-wife.

In a petition before Broward Circuit Judge Renee Goldenberg, he said Margaret Parker intentionally misled him to believe that he was the father, and he asked the court to make his ex-wife pay him damages to compensate for past and future child-support obligations.

Goldenberg rejected his claim without wading into the issue of whether Richard Parker had been deceived. In late November, an appeals court upheld the decision.

`A TIME LIMIT'

Time was not on Richard Parker's side, said Joanna L. Grossman, a professor at Hofstra Law School in Hempstead, N.Y.

''The law provides a remedy for fraud, but imposes a time limit for raising the claim,'' Grossman wrote in an e-mail. ``Since his wife made the representation about the child's paternity during the divorce action, that proceeding was the appropriate time for him to raise any concerns he might have had.''

His lawyer, Scott A. Lazar, questioned the fairness of such a time limit, considering, as he alleges, that Parker was duped into believing he was the father.

''No one's going to tell you they are having an affair,'' Lazar said.

But Margaret Parker said she wasn't having an affair.

She said her ex-husband was infertile, a claim he called a ''a total lie,'' adding that, in fact, he has impregnated women in the past.

As part of her ruling, Judge Carole Y. Taylor of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach acknowledged that Richard Parker might feel victimized by the court's ruling. But she said the child's needs are paramount.

She said that the father's appeal could trigger ``psychological devastation that the child will undoubtedly experience from losing the only father he or she has ever known.''

Moreover, Taylor noted, cheating is hardly rare. Quoting from a law article written by Temple Law Professor Theresa Glennon, the appeals judge wrote:

``While some individuals are innocent victims of deceptive partners, adults are aware of the high incidence of infidelity and only they, not the children, are able to act to ensure that the biological ties they may deem essential are present. . . . The law should discourage adults from treating children they have parented as expendable when their adult relationships fall apart.''

Andrea Moore, executive director of Florida's Children First, a statewide advocacy organization based in Coral Springs, applauded the court rulings.

PUTTING CHILD FIRST

''Why would society allow a child to suffer for the mistakes of the parents?'' Moore said. ``If you look at it from the child's perspective, the child needs parents who consistently provide and care about them. That should come first. I am not so sure the youngster would care who the biological father was if the man had acted like the father.''

The child, now 7, still believes Richard Parker is his father, both parents said. His name has been withheld to protect his identity.

To be sure, Parker said he still wants to help the child. He said he would like to control where the money goes, and added that he and his current wife are already starting a college fund.

Miami attorney Gerald Kornreich said that courts sometimes order an accounting of such payments, but added that it's not standard because the amount -- in this case, $1,200 a month -- is based on a guideline stemming from the parents' combined salaries.

''Disgruntled dads often say, `I am giving all this money and the mom is using it to go out at night or use it with her boyfriend,'' he said.

''But usually it's too little and not too much'' support.

Biology isn't everything, conceded Parker, himself a child of adoption. He said his son should know as much as he can about his biological father's health history.

''Let's find out who this guy is,'' Parker said.

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