She Killed His Son but He Must Pay Her Alimony
MCP
Examples of decent, loving dads being manhandled by the anti-father family
law system are legion, but this one has to make the Top 10. A recent New
Jersey appeals court reaffirmed a decision mandating that a man must pay
alimony to his ex-wife--who killed their son. From Legal tussle: Should
killer get alimony? (Bergen Record, 11/22/07):
"A state appeals court on Wednesday refused to automatically bar alimony
from spouses who kill a child...The decision was issued in the case of Linda
Calbi, who is serving a three-year prison term after pleading guilty to
beating her son, Matt, on Aug. 17, 2003, during a violent argument at their
home. He died hours later from internal bleeding and cardiac arrest...
"Linda Calbi was originally charged with murder, but the charges were later
downgraded to aggravated assault, based on expert reports that medical error
contributed significantly to the boy's death. She was sentenced last year to
three years in prison and won't be eligible for parole until November 2008.
"The Calbis were divorced in 2001 after 15 years of marriage. A few months
after Matt's death, Chris Calbi fell behind on his alimony payments and
filed papers in court seeking a reduction or termination of his payment
obligations.
"'She took the life of her oldest son, scarred her younger son for the rest
of his life, and tore the fabric of my soul from me,' Chris Calbi wrote in
papers filed in Superior Court in Hackensack. 'To reward this evil and
violent woman by allowing her ... to derive a financial benefit from the
family she destroyed ... can only be described as a perversion of our
justice system.'"
Chris Calbi had been paying Linda $3,183 a month until her incarceration,
and may be saddled with that amount when Linda is paroled. Chris is pictured
with his deceased son Matthew and his surviving son Dean above. A few
comments:
1) Chris Calbi claimed that Linda abused and assaulted him during their
marriage, at times employing a kitchen knife and a hammer. The death of the
son is discussed in Typical teen meets a tragic end (Bergen Record,
8/20/03), and Linda Calbi sounds like a real sweetheart:
"As [Christopher Calbi's] company - Robert Christopher Sales - grew,
[Christopher] was increasingly away in Europe on business, Linda Calbi said
in divorce papers. Though they shared fine dinners, and Christopher Calbi
showered his wife with gifts, a physical and emotional distance developed
between Matthew's parents, her papers say.
"Linda Calbi said in the papers that she felt like 'a highly paid slave.'
"Christopher Calbi countered that his wife subjected him to 'profanity-laced
tirades and ridicule.'"
2) From the same article:
"The couple split in 1999 and - after 15 years of marriage - divorced in
July 2001.
"Meanwhile, Matthew was having problems at school, said a woman who worked
in the River Vale school system.
"When Matthew was in the special education program at Holdrum Middle School,
he regularly came to class with bruises, said the woman, who declined to be
identified. The teen always had an excuse for the marks - he was playing
with his younger brother, or he fell, the woman said.
"But in April 2002, the woman noticed a strange bruise on Matthew's wrist,
one she thought looked like a defensive wound. She asked Matt to explain,
but he couldn't, she said, so she called DYFS to report the mark.
"As part of the special education program, Linda Calbi met routinely with
educators to review her son's performance.
"But when Calbi showed up, she often smelled of booze, the woman said. 'You
could light the air on fire, she smelled so badly,' the woman said.
"Linda could not understand why her son wasn't more successful in school.
"'She was very forceful when she spoke. Nothing was ever her fault, and of
course she was at her wit's end,' the woman said."
3) The father now has to raise the surviving son, Dean, age 12, on his own.
Is Linda being asked to pay child support? Isn't Chris' ability to provide
for Dean negatively impacted by having to pay alimony to the noncustodial
parent?
4) Chris also needs to save his money--Linda may be out of prison in less
than a year and will be fighting for visitation rights to Dean. In July,
2006, a judge ordered a supervised visitation between Dean and his mother,
contingent on the boy's acceptance.
5) Linda apparently received a lesser charge and sentence for her crime
because supposedly there was medical bungling by the hospital after she
assaulted her son which contributed to Matthew's death. How much of her
light sentence is due to the alleged medical bungling and how much is just
the standard female sentencing discount is unclear.
6) It's amazing some of the things that an attorney will say. Linda's
attorney, Ian Hirsch, said:
"'Mr. Calbi is using his son's death to take away any obligations he has,'
Hirsch said. 'I think he's trying to take advantage of a tragedy and turn it
around to his economic benefit.'"
Yup--dad not wanting to pay money to the woman who killed his son is "taking
advantage of a tragedy and turning it around to his economic benefit." Bad
dad--how could he be so rotten?
7) Can you imagine a judge ordering a woman to pay alimony to the ex-husband
who murdered her child? In fact, California has a recent law which created a
presumption that a victim of domestic violence should not be required to pay
support to a violent spouse.
8) Once again we see the link between family violence and substance abuse.
Misguided feminists often downplay this link because it contradicts the
feminist Duluth/"domestic violence is a function of the patriarchy" family
violence model.
The new court decision by the Superior Court of New Jersey's Appellate
Division can be seen here.
A recent CNN report on the case can be viewed here.
Society
"MCP" <gf010...@blueyonder.co.uk> reported in message
news:YOO2j.2330$EU1....@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>
> [She Killed His Son but He Must Pay Her Alimony]
> http://glennsacks.com:80/blog/?p=1461
>
> Examples of decent, loving dads being manhandled by
> the anti-father family law system are legion, but this one
> has to make the Top 10. A recent New Jersey appeals
> court reaffirmed a decision mandating that a man must
> pay alimony to his ex-wife--who killed their son. From
> Legal tussle:
> Should killer get alimony? (Bergen Record, 11/22/07):
> "A state appeals court on Wednesday refused to
> automatically bar alimony from spouses who
> kill a child...The decision was issued in the case
> of Linda Calbi, who is serving a three-year prison
> term after pleading guilty to beating her son, Matt,
> on Aug. 17, 2003, during a violent argument at their
> home. He died hours later from internal bleeding
> and cardiac arrest...
>
> "Linda Calbi was originally charged with murder,
> but the charges were later downgraded to aggravated
Elsewhere I've posted that the lovely and talented
Dr. Helen Smith asked on her own blog, "Should
spouses who kill their children be awarded alimony?"
I'm reposting it here (with some added commentary)
so all the best comments on the topic are corralled
here into one thread.
Dr. Smith reviewed the case of Linda Calbi, a woman
charged with the murder of her 14-year old son,
convicted of aggravated assault, then sentenced to
three years in women's prison.
Says Dr. Smith, for the divorced husband "to be
forced to pay this killer... is truly a perversion
of our justice system. No one who kills their
child should be rewarded with monetary support
from a spouse. ... The law should be changed."
Remember, the number-one source of child
abuse is the bio-mom and for her abuse the
feminists _always_ have an excuse.
As is usual, the comments made in reaction to
Dr. Smith's remarks are also worth reading.
She has many commenters whose well-written,
reasoned responses show a much better than
average grasp of gender issues, men's rights,
and the sex-role iniquities that are ignored by
feminists and their lace-curtained Establishment
Media confederates.
The blogger dadvocate "wonder(s) if a wrongful
death lawsuit would work here. Sue her for an
amount greater than the alimony." Good point
but let's face it, even if this would succeed the
father's financial problems wouldn't change.
He'd just be making payments to the lawyers
instead of to the murdering ex-wife.
The dadvocate later scolded another commenter,
Labamigo, for wrongly calling the father of the
murdered boy a "deadbeat" and hunting around
for any irrelevancy with which to cloak and excuse
the murderous mother.
Commenter Jeff said "Alimony should be abolished
altogether. It's mere child support for adults."
He then questioned the reasons Mr. Shannon Love
gave in his comments for the court's doggedness
in insisting that the murdering mother win alimony
from her ex. Until alimony is abolished, Jeff
suggests, "Alimony SHOULD be based on good
conduct."
RebeccaH worries, "after she (Linda Calbi) leaves
prison, they'll probably give her custody of her
younger son again."
Heather fretted over Jeff's call for abolishing
alimony. "I gave up a career to take care
of my kids," she said. Sarah chimed in later
to say alimony, "simply monetizes work which
one party received from another" and Chris,
who says "my wife earned more than me
before she decided on a career change to
stay-at-home-mom" agrees with Heather and
Sarah. BobH responded with an anecdote
about a man "married to a woman who graduated
from one of the best law schools in the country"
and her "career trajectory since graduation has
been toward positions of less effort, less
responsibility, and lower compensation until
now she is a stay-at-home mother to two
children with a third on the way."
Jeff then responded to Heather and Chris by
pointing out, "When you (Heather) decided
to give up your career, you moved from a
state of less utility to a state of more utility.
... Heather, you have already been compensated
for your choice (not a "loss") to give up a career.
You preferred a close relationship with your
children over a career: you got it. You have
been compensated."
Further down the comments, genxmom opined,
"Mothers will always be able to meet their
children's emotional needs better than fathers
will," and the dadvocate replied, "I'm not
saying men are better, but, unlike you, I'm
saying they're just as good. Different perhaps,
but just as good." Hmm. Was it the responses
to genxmom's sexism from the dadvocate and
others who echoed his indignation or the
upending of Heather's cry for alimony by other
commenters that so upset Darleen (who blogs
elsewhere as Darleen Click) that she lashed
out with a cry of "woman-haters". Oh well,
not every female commenter can remains calm
and reasonable when women's privileges
come under scrutiny and are shown to be
unjust, unequal, and unfair.
--
We now return you to your regularly-scheduled list
of Impossible Things to Believe Before Breakfast,
already in progress: [...]
Only in a society which maintains a level of 95%
of alimony and child support being paid by men
to women can men and women be considered as equals.
from "Tangent" by Dave Sim
http://www.tcj.com/232/tangent1.html
crazy...@yahoo.com
> "MCP" <gf010w5...@blueyonder.co.uk> reported in messagenews:YOO2j.2330$EU1....@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>
> - Show quoted text -
So, once again, the family court hits the headlines. Instead of
getting lost in the details and offering opinions that do not matter
one iota,,,,, let's examine the family court system.
First, it is run by lawyers. There is no incentive for lawyers to
remedy their client's issues in an expeditious manner at the
exorbitant rates they charge. It would simply be a conflict of
interest. Therefore,, they hand out raw deals for repeat business.
Sometimes they even get free headlines for advertising.
It is my opinion that they are societal leeches. They may begin their
career as someone with a conscious but after a short time; they must
choose either a conscious or a career. By that time, they have been
entwined into a financial world. Conscious looses. Callous minds
develop and greed happens generally at the expense of the children.
Oh,,,,,, yeah,,,,,,, what about the kids??? I doubt that they give a
damn.
There is no money in complete resolve,,,,,,,Therefore, the
lopsidedness of the system. Currently it is for the women. It used to
be for the men. Somehow the pendulum has never been in the middle.
Hmmmmmm
I have given up on getting justice in the family court. I refuse to
feed them.
If you think for one nano second that those folks are stupid or
ignorant,,,,, If you think that for one minute that they don't know
what's going on or unaware of the travesty,,,,, you are a fool. Wake
up.
There is no recourse against false allegations for a reason. Look at
the hundreds of lives ruined by the "Nappy Headed Ho" that levied the
false charges against the Duke University lacrosse team. She wasn't
even publicly reprimanded. Zero charges filed. The judge let her go
because, "She may actually believe those things happened." Yeah, and,
the Easter Bunny jumped over the moon. Numerous cases of false
allegations abound in the news. When proven false there is no recourse
against the accuser for a reason. The message is,,,,, the attorneys
are soaking up the gravy.
As long as the attorneys can get their financial anatomy up your bank
account,,,, they'll keep it there for as long as it's a pleasurable
experience.
My response is,,,,, don't feed the attorneys. Starve them out of
business.