Attempting to be a Stay-at-Home Mom Led to Fraud

Whitefish Bay couple charged with health care, food benefits fraud

By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel

Dec. 22, 2015

A Whitefish Bay couple has been charged with fraudulently collecting nearly $115,000 in state health care and food benefits from 2007 to 2014, when one of them was earning about $160,000 a year.

Authorities say Mary Carini-Gallagher, 51, and Todd Schaller, 52, repeatedly misled the state Department of Health Services about their joint finances and living arrangement.

State officials didn't spot the alleged fraud, even after the couple and their home were featured in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "At Home With" feature story in 2012. That didn't happen until someone sent the Office of Inspector General an anonymous letter in July 2014.

Carini-Gallagher faces counts of public assistance fraud, collecting benefits and failing to disclose events affecting eligibility. Each is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Schaller faces two counts of conspiracy to commit public assistance fraud and a single count of getting less than $2,000 in public assistance benefits by fraud. The first two carry the five-year maximum sentence, and the third count has a maximum prison term of 18 months.

Both were charged Friday and made their first court appearances Tuesday. Court Commissioner David Sweet released both on $1,500 signature bonds and set preliminary hearings for Jan. 22.

According to the criminal complaint:

Investigators raided the couple's home in the 5900 block of Santa Monica Blvd. in March. At that time, investigators found several records indicating the couple had resided together since 2007. Each had children from previous marriages, and one child together.

Carini-Gallagher had initially qualified for and received public assistance. But when she moved in with Schaller, who was an executive at a concrete company, she failed to inform the DHS about her change in circumstances, time after time, even after the couple bought the house in Whitefish Bay in 2009.

Carini-Gallagher also claimed to DHS that one of her daughters was still living with her when the daughter was, in fact, living and studying in Thailand.

In January 2013, Schaller applied for food stamps for himself, listing his two older children as part of his household, though they resided with their mother, while omitting that he lived with Carini-Gallagher, her children, and the couple's own daughter. Four days before he applied, Schaller had gotten a $53,369 severance check from VCNA Prairie Material, a major supplier of mixed concrete in the area.

While detectives were in her home serving the search warrant in March, Carini-Gallagher first said she had just skimmed the various public benefit forms and didn't realize she was supposed to report her change in household. But she later admitted intentionally misleading the state about her true situation to continue getting the extra money.

Carini-Gallagher "stated that being a mother was what she was born to do and that she falsified the information to DHS so she could stay at home with her children."

The 2009 purchase price on the 2,300-square-foot, four-bedroom home: $380,000. The current value is estimated at well over $400,000.

I’m of two minds regarding this situation.

One, in the end, the woman finally became honest and admitted she wanted to stay home and raise her children herself and she didn’t have the income to support that…Of course the man she was living with had the income; but, he simply decided it was cheaper to not marry her and assume responsibility for her and the children from a previous relationship.

So she constructed a middle-class life-style, which was basically a lie, in order to become the stay-at-home mom she clearly wanted to be.  In the process, she defrauded the state and it’s taxpayers for thousands claiming benefits to feed, cloth and provide health care for herself and her children.

My second thought while being sympathetic to her cause, is that she should be held accountable for her actions as women like this enable idiots like her live-in boyfriend to get away with his ‘spit in the face’ to our society’s norms and values.

He presented a fascade to his neighbors and portrayed himself as one of them.  For all intents and purposes he was a loving faux husband and father providing his family with a home and feeding and clothing them just like all his neighbors were doing for their families, blended or otherwise. Meanwhile he was doing this on the backs of his neighbors since it was his neighbors who were feeding and providing free health care for his faux family…

So punishment must be meted out to both, arrangements must br made to pay back the monies they owed.  I just hope the main punishment doesn’t fall on the mother here and it is properly apportioned between this pair.

Small Victory for Children

Small Victory for Children

I think part of this outcome was expected as some adult had to pay for support of the child.   The gratifying part of this was that for the first time, to my knowledge, a Judge recognized the underlying fraud that was involved in this situation and is allowing the fraud case to proceed.

Now I know that most of this sort of fraud is instigated by women against men; so they can collect child support and thus live off that income until the child becomes an adult:  the infamous 'paternity fraud' men are always screaming about...Yes, it does happen but in one sense it's almost a more or less normal occurrence since historically that's how women survived by bearing children and having men take care of them in the traditional family unit of mother and child.  I have to laugh to myself when I think how many sons and daughters of Kings and Princes could have been the product of handsome stable hands and other ordinary men who just happen to come in contact with the royal family.  

So yes, even today, I can see a mother engaging in paternity fraud and still loving her child.  

Yet when men do this I find it repugnant as there is something totally alien and abnormal about the whole thing...

Anyway I don't believe that TMZ is corrrect and that if Sherri Sheppard wins her fraud case her child support order will 'disappear'.  Nothing will ever wipe that child support order out and this man who defrauded her can declare bankruptcy and wipe out the fraud award to Sherri Sheppard.  

Sad but true.

However what it will do is put one more nail in the coffin of this surrogacy business and begin lessening the number of its supporters and that's a good thing for children...

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2015/07/01/sherri-shepherd-lamar-sally-divorce-finalized-child-support/#ixzz3uyWO0A69

Sherri Shepherd's nasty divorce and custody battle is finally over ... and stunningly, she has agreed to pay child support for the kid she disavowed from birth ... but with a catch.

Our sources say, Sherri and estranged hubby Lamar Sally have struck a settlement agreement in which the ex-'View' co-host will pay $4,100 a month in child support. The monthly obligation increases to $4,600 when the kid turns 13.  

Remember, Sherri fought Lamar tooth and nail in court, claiming he defrauded her into getting a surrogate to carry a baby for the purpose of getting child support.

Now for the catch. According to the settlement agreement, Sherri is allowed to pursue her fraud claim and if the appeals court rules in her favor, her child support obligations will disappear. 

And there's a Sofia Vergara twist ... the couple has embryos in storage and Sherri wants them destroyed. Lamar is undecided. According to the settlement, if Lamar chooses to bring the embryos to term, Sherri will not have to pay child support.

Sherri's not walking away completely empty-handed ... she'll get to hold onto the rights to her show, "Funny Mothers" which is currently in development.

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2015/07/01/sherri-shepherd-lamar-sally-divorce-finalized-child-support/#ixzz3uyWO0A69

Men Rewarding Themselves with Undeserved Financial Rewards

This is an old post I thought would be appropriate to re-post again particularly since I am reading about so many men who have contributed little or nothing to their families filing and receiving spousal support and/or alimony.

We need to remind Judges of the historical origins of spousal support and alimony and why it is rarely justified in the case of men.  Child support, of course, is a totally different issue..

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Unfair Manipulation of Marital Settlements and/or Spousal Support

I don’t know maybe I’m crazy but I find the article below to be a perfect example of men working the legal system to benefit themselves by misusing the common sense body of matrimonial laws that were crafted to protect women (who were more financially vulnerable) during the early periods of our history. These laws are basically holdovers from the time when women did not work outside the home, when husbands controlled any property she had, while her primary focus was on raising the children and/or running the household for the benefit of her family, including her husband. Clearly when women were in that situation, you had to have laws for equitable divisions of assets and/or spousal support.

Also these laws made sense in the context of a society where women faced the additional problem of discrimination in hiring if we did wish to work outside of the home. Men NEVER faced this work discrimination situation just because they were men; nor did they stay at home with the children running the household and missing out on educational and professional opportunities due to focusing on their family.

Thus, I believe we should rarely, if ever, consider spousal support for a man and place stricter limits on division of marital assets for everyone. This division should depend upon what each spouse actually contributed to the assets of the household or the negative impact their contribution to their family had on their own career or professional advancement and that it occurred during the life of the marriage.

For example, a man obtained a professional degree in a lower-paying profession, worked in that profession for years obtaining a fair salary, paid into a TDA for retirement, took no time off from work for family-related matters: sickness, child care, etc., He spends most of his money putting it into his own investments/retirement account or buying cars or other expensive electronics gizmos for himself such as big-screen televisions to watch the game on or some expensive hobby for himself. One example: he decides to buy a ‘working farm’ that he can putter around on every weekend claiming it’s a vacation home for the family. Even though every other member of the family hates it but him and never wants to go there.

Remember, even though women spend more on shopping what are we shopping for most of the time? Usually we aren’t shopping for expensive gizmos for our own use, but food, clothing for our families (including our husbands as I shopped for my ex-husband ALL the time buying his clothes), pharmaceuticals and other household related items.

So can someone explain to me WHY a man who does what I outlined above should get HALF of the marital assets (as he didn’t add anything to those assets spending MOST of his salary on himself) or why he’s entitled to spousal support (since he already has a professional career, albeit a lesser paying one then his ex-wife and took no time off from work to raise his kids or run the household) Thus, his marriage had NO negative impact on his earning power whatsoever?

Basically unless he can make the case that he spent time on his family and out of the job market which hurt his career/earning capacity OR maybe he saved some money for the higher earner spouse by being home with the kids and avoiding the payment of a maid/nanny for a substantial period of time, then he should get out of the marriage just what he contributed, his own salary, investment/retirement account and whatever clothes, cars/gizmos he purchased over the years.

After carefully reviewing this article, there was no mention of ANY of these men helping with children or tending the household while their wives worked. Or any sacrifice any of these men made for their families which might have been a mitigating factor entitling them to spousal support or even a 50/50 division of the family’s assets, mostly contributed by their ex-wives.

Additionally only ONE of the women in the article, who was forced to give 50% of her assets to a man, was a high earner in my opinion. Most of them inherited their assets or had invested in a home BEFORE marriage, which they were then forced to sell their one asset (which they obtained before marriage) in order to pay off an ex-husband with no mention of what these men sacrificed for their family that might have contributed to the lesser earning power or assets for these men.

Also, as I said above, I don’t consider a teacher to be a low-paying profession that need to be compensated by a spouse that is an attorney just because one profession pays more then the other. A teacher is a professional position (at least in the US) paying anywhere from $40,000 to $65,000 depending upon the district you are employed in. The purpose of spousal support is NOT, nor should it be, to be used as a means of income transfer from one spouse to another just because one person chose a high-paying profession then the other one. Spousal support is supposed to be used to support a spouse who would have no income or a much lesser one (ie., a clerk in an office or a cashier/waitress in a restaurant) precisely BECAUSE they devoted themselves to their home and family and thus, didn’t have the time or money to devote to education and becoming a professional. Generally this would apply to a stay-at-home parent (usually a mother) who devoted herself to bearing the children of the marriage and then stayed home to raise them. I don’t have any sense in this article that any of these men getting awarded these settlements did ANY of this…

One of them is described as a teacher, who just chose a professional that made less money then his lawyer wife. There is no mention of him devoting any additional time to any children of the marriage or to the family in anyway; that might have impacted his earnings ability. Another is a man who clearly worked and made good money but then chose to spend most of it on expensive cars. Another was in a short-term marriage for three years to an actress who was working as an actress before she married him. A third was just married for seven years (another short-term marriage) and then his wife was forced to pay him out of an inheritance she received from a family member.

Child support, of course, is a differing situation but I heard no mention of this in the article.

So based upon all these observations, these are outrageous examples of men who worked the system and got undeservedly enriched.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2157953_1,00.html


The Sunday Times

April 30, 2006

Superwomen pay price in divorce court
John Elliott

HIGH-FLYING career women are discovering a costly downside to their success — divorce settlements that force them to pay out huge sums to their less wealthy ex-husbands.

Law firms are reporting an increasing number of cases in which men earn windfalls through divorce as women outperform their husbands in the workplace.

One London law firm, Mishcon de Reya — which handled the divorce of Diana, Princess of Wales — is currently dealing with 10 cases where the wife earns more than the husband.

Sandra Davis, head of family law, said the wives were “serious players, businesswomen who are going to have to pay money to their spouses”.

Dawsons, another London law firm, is dealing with six divorces in which the woman is earning well into six figures. Suzanne Kingston, head of family law, said:“There’s the possibility of a spousal maintenance order to the husband . . . most women don’t imagine they would be liable for this, so it surprises them.”
The rate of change has been rapid. “Twenty years ago there were no reported cases of men obtaining money from their wives on divorce — now it is routine,” said Simon Bruce, head of family law at Farrer & Co, the Queen’s solicitors.

Among the high earners who have paid out to ex-husbands is Kate Winslet, the actress. A payment of about £500,000 was agreed to finalise her divorce in 2001 from Jim Threapleton, her husband of three years. 

For Susan Singleton, a mother of five from Pinner, Middlesex, her divorce three years ago meant handing over nearly £900,000 to her ex-husband Martin after 20 years of marriage. As a lawyer, her earnings are over £200,000 and dwarf those of her former husband, a teacher and organist.
Singleton’s divorce settlement forced her to remortgage the £1.9m family home for £1.1m, and she also pays school and university fees of £50,000 a year. “I’m in the same position as a lot of men who work very hard, earn a lot of money, and then the person they happen to have been married to gets a share of that, even though they haven’t really built it up,” she said. “Why should the spouse who earns less get a share of the higher-earning one’s income?” Martin Singleton said: “I was urged to get more by my solicitor but settled for less so she didn’t have to sell the family home. I wouldn’t want to seem greedy, I only got what I was entitled to.

Financial experts predict that in coming decades more women will have to pay out former husbands, as greater numbers are promoted to top jobs. Last year the number of female millionaires in the 18-44 age bracket overtook the number of men — 47,355 compared with 37,935, according to a study by the Centre for Economics and Business research. Women will own 60% of the UK’s personal wealth by 2025, up from 48% now, the researchers found.

In a divorce, women can also be required to hand over money inherited from their parents, as Barbara Dowell, a 48 year-old marketing executive from Rutland, discovered last year. Dowell, who has one child, said she inherited £500,000 in 2000, only to hand over about half of it to her husband on divorce, after 14 years together.
To fund this the family home was sold for about £300,000, and she lives in a rented house and pays school fees for their son, whose residence is shared.
Dowell said: “I am now funding him (the husband) through my inheritance. It makes me extremely angry.”

Her former husband was not available for comment.

Liz Haskell, 56, from Woodbridge, Suffolk, said she paid her ex-husband £50,000 last autumn after seven years of marriage ended. Haskell, who said she inherited her assets, said: “It was a slap in the face — I feel cheated by the system.
So often it’s just rich men you read about having to pay off women with their millions.”

Her former husband was also not available for comment.

One divorcee from Berkshire in her late fifties, who asked not to be named, described her former husband as a “creature” whom she hoped encountered anthrax. “He only married me for what he could get out of me,” she said. “He squandered his own earnings on Porsches and Jaguars (and) didn’t contribute to the family.”
The mother of two, who said she had inherited her wealth and owned the family home outright before she met her husband, said she had been forced to sell up for £700,000 and split the proceeds. The woman, who married 22 years ago and divorced in the late 1990s, added: “He abandoned the children . . . we’re living in a house the size of a postage stamp now.”
Nicola Horlick, the City fund manager and mother of five, now divorced from her husband Tim, argues that divorce law needs reviewing. “There are an awful lot of people getting upset,” she said. “Fathers who don’t believe they have enough access to children; men who believe they have paid out too much — and wives who believe they have paid out too much.”

'Rent-a-Womb' Surrogacy Faces Ban in India

'Rent-a-Womb' Surrogacy Faces Ban in India

India's government will ban foreigners from using surrogate mothers in the country, a move likely to hit the booming commercial surrogacy industry.

Ranks of childless foreign couples have flocked to the country in recent years looking for a low-cost, legal and simple route to parenthood.

Health industry estimates put the size of India’s surrogacy business at nine billion rupees ($138 million) and growing at 20 per cent a year.

But critics have said a lack of legislation governing surrogacy encourages “rent-a-womb” exploitation of young, poor Indian women.

In an affidavit to the Supreme Court today, the government said it “does not support commercial surrogacy”.

“No foreigners can avail surrogacy services in India,” it told the court, which is hearing a petition regarding the industry, adding that surrogacy would be available “only for Indian couples”.

Thousands of infertile couples, many from overseas, hire the wombs of Indian women to carry their embryos through to birth.

Click for more from news.com.au

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This is a long overdue initiative by the Indian government.

People are not entitled to have children just because they have a couple of thousand dollars available and can hire a young woman relatively inexpensively to carry a child to term for them.

I'm actually surprised India let it go on for as long as they did.

Surprisingly enough Russia has a more enlightened policy then we do on this surrogacy business. All persons involved have no legal rights to the children born through these arrangements, no matter how much money exchanges hands.  So there is no incentive to conduct these transactions financial or otherwise.

We see the potential for disaster inherent in these arrangements starting with the Baby M case and right up to the present day with Sherri Shepherd (former host of the View) trying to negative a surrogate contract because her husband filed for divorce before the child was even born to the surrogate...

Let's just say no as India is now doing.

Event Horizon Rapidly Accelerating on Custody Outcome...

People Exclusive

Kelly Rutherford Allowed to See Kids in Monaco as New Custody Hearing Is Set for October

BY MICHELE CORRISTON

09/04/2015 AT 01:30 PM EDT

Despite fears that Kelly Rutherford would lose access to her two children after her ex accused her of

 abducting them last month, the star is spending time with them after Thursday's 

court appearance in Monaco.  The Gossip Girl actress was spotted grabbing lunch with 

son Hermes, 8, and daughter Helena, 6, in the South of France on Friday.  A source says 

that the current parenting arrangement – in which she and German businessman Daniel Giersch 

have joint custody but the children live primarily with him and Monaco and France – remains in 

tact, though there is a new court date set for Oct. 26.

"Everybody agrees that it's best that the children be with both parents,and Kelly's enjoying 

being with them," the insider tells PEOPLE.  Rutherford, 46, attended a two-hour hearing 

Thursday in Monaco, another source says.  She's been fighting to bring Hermes and Helena back 

to the United States, where they were both born, since 2012, when a judge sent them abroad to live with 

their father temporarily.

******************************************************************************************************************************

I hope I am wrong, but I see a very sad outcome at hand for Kelly Rutherford.  I believe she 

might have her visitation either terminated or limited to a once a year visitation scenario under 

supervision or something of that nature.

Generally in these sorts of situations where a mother won't quietly accept the court's decision 

termination of contact is often the final outcome...

Maybe because she's famous and has made such a stink about the whole thing, they'll settle for 

supervised once a year visitation until the children are teenagers or something of that nature.  

Generally for the rest of us 'average' moms our visitation would have already been terminated.  

It's why I support so-called 'Joint Custody' as it's the lesser of many evils offered to mothers when 

they have children with men who are determined to fight it out in court for custody.   Courts 

today are not friendly to women, especially mothers.

Worse Custody Ruling Ever, Not Quite

‘Gossip Girl’ star in custody fight feels betrayed by justice system By Rich Calder August 13, 2014 | 8:14pm “Gossip Girl” star Kelly Rutherford says she feels betrayed by Uncle Sam. “My own country won’t protect the rights of my own children,” said the beautiful blond actress, fuming, after storming out of a Manhattan federal courtroom briefly Wednesday to compose herself ​as she suffered a big setback in ​her bid to keep her son Hermés, 7, and daughter Helena, 5, in the US. Manhattan federal Judge Andrew Carter Jr. said he wouldn’t interfere with a California state judge’s 2012 order requiring the kids to live with their father, Rutherford’s ex-husband Daniel Giersch, in France. Although Carter won’t officially issue his written opinion until Friday, he said he doesn’t believe he has jurisdiction to issue any type of order prohibiting the children from returning to France once their summer vacation ends next week. The couple has 50-50 custody, but ​as Page Six reported Wednesday, ​Rutherford, 45, of Manhattan, claims her kids are basically being “deported” through an odd legal fluke. Giersch, a German citizen living in France, was expelled from the US for alleged visa fraud and failure to pay taxes. Since he can’t visit the children in the US, a California state judge ordered that the children should remain with him during the school year. A cash-strapped Rutherford over the past two years has flown more than 40 times to France to see her children. In another legal rarity, Rutherford’s legal team – which is working for free because the actress has already gone bankrupt shelling out $1.5 million in legal fees – recommended the government take steps to allow Giersch back into the US so that he’d no longer be able to dance around the legal loopholes allowing him to keep the American-born children in France. Carter agreed to “facilitate” the plan, at one point allowing Giersch’s and Rutherford’s lawyers to meet in his robing room to discuss the idea. However, it was unclear afterwards if Giersch wants to pursue getting his US visa back. “He has benefited by doing nothing,” said Michael J. Wildes, a lawyer for Rutherford. “This case underscores the blind spots in our law. We have a broken immigration system.” A composed Rutherford said afterwards that she was thankful the judge and feds agreed to help broker an agreement with her ex. However, a half hour earlier she was noticeably upset after briefly leaving the courtroom. She said her children as US citizens have a right to be educated in America and that “something like this would never happen” in any other country– especially “Germany.” She also said the legal system is unfair because her children – “who are US citizens” — are being “forced” to leave America while she’s stuck paying taxes to help support the children of parents “who illegally crossed our borders.” Rutherford filed suit on August 5 against US Attorney General Eric Holder and other federal officials, seeking a court order declaring the California ruling “unconstitutional” so that her children could remain in the country. “No similar case could be found where children who were born and raised in the United States were deported from their own country, where their mother still resides, to accommodate the demands of a non-citizen parent forbidden to re-enter the United States,” the suit says. Carter, however, said the children aren’t being “deported” in the official sense and that he believes their constitutional rights are not being violated. He said the “state court made a determination that the children should be with the father” and that he’s “convinced” he doesn’t have jurisdiction to overturn such a ruling. Rutherford’s lawyers said they’d consider taking the case to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals once Carter’s dismissal is official. However, time is running out because the children are required to return to France on August…

This poor woman has just lost her final court appeal...

Well this was heartbreaking, but a good lesson to other mothers.   

“STAY OUT OF COURTS WITH THESE ONGOING CUSTODY FIGHTS.  

THE COURTS ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND”

Sadly, our courts have been overrun with mens rights nuts and crazy gender neutralized feminists who are always looking to demonstrate that men and women are completely the same by removing children from their mother’s custody. 

Of course, right on schedule, the children were immediately dumped off on Giersch’s mother who has a permanent residence in Monaco.  I wonder if they’ll even speak English by the time they come back to the US which will probably happen when they are adults…

BTW, after six months or so of residence in another country, state, whatever, Giersch can re-file his court papers in the children’s new place of residence and get himself legally declared sole custodian and then this poor woman won’t even have the fiction of “50/50 custody” to comfort her.

Although Ms. Rutherford appears to believe this is the only time this situation has happened, I have heard of a number of mothers having their children legally relocated to other countries with court approval.  So in some sense the children are lucky, especially her daughter.  She could be living in the mid-east right now, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, anywhere.  Fortunately they are living in a stable European country, their grandmother is caring for them and I assume they will be in a proper school at some point.

Someone commented in another article about this decision that it was “the worse custody ruling ever”…but I must disagree.  The worse custody ruling ever was when a California female Judge returned two children to OJ Simpson even though they had been living with loving grandparents for almost a year during his murder trial.  There was no reason to overturn the stable environment they were already living in, OJ could have visited them on schedule like non-custodial parents everywhere do, he could have retained parental rights w/o upsetting the stability of the childrens' lives.   How many mothers do I know who lost custody with that exact rationale, many.

If I live to be 100, I will never get over that custody ruling...

“Best interest of the children”  it’s laughable really when you look at many of the rulings coming from these courts…

I was actually waiting for this to happen to Halle Berry when she started this whole court fight to move to France with her daughter.

Halle was very, very lucky that time, I hope she doesn’t repeat this error of judgment by attempting to go back to court on other issues in the future.  It could end badly for her.

Anyway I reiterate:  stay away from courts mothers please.