Paternity Test

[Helping_a_Frien]

My jurisdiction is: Oklahoma/Iowa

I have a friend who was dating a girl several years ago. She ended up pregnant and put his last name on the birth certificate. Over the years he has been ordered to pay child support. He has paid and/or had checks and tax refunds garnished to pay the outrageous amounts. He is 99.9999% sure that this is not his child. However, she refuses to allow a paternity test, and also refuses to let him see "his" child even though he has visitation rights. She lives in Iowa. He lives in Oklahoma. He does not have money for a lawyer. How can he go about forcing her to give a paternity test? And should that paternity test come out that the child is definitely not his, how does he go about recovering the tens of thousands of dollars that she has "stolen" from him? He needs help ASAP. Can anyone give me some ideas? He does have a child currently, and in his custody and that is definitely his. This ex of his ended up getting his entire tax return this year (which was significant).

 

[Duranie]

It is probably too late to do a paternity test. The time to do a paternity is right after the birth, not years later. So your friend is the legal father so he should take mom back to court and file contempt if there is a visitation schedule she is not adhering too. He should google the iowa stte guidelines for child support to make sure he is paying teh right amount. He really should do whatever possible to get an attorney in iowa to help him deal with mom and get visits. He lives out of state so it will not be easy, he will hav to travel to IOWA to see the child.