Many black men in America will tell you the child support courts in this country are out of control. Nothing validates this claim more so than the story of Carnell Alexander.

Alexander is facing jail time for not paying back child support in the amount of $30,000. However, the foul part of this story is Alexander isn’t the father of the boy, according to a DNA test they took and the mother validates it as well.

So, how is it Alexander facing jail time and owe $30,000?

This started in the 1980’s when Alexander’s ex-girlfriend had a baby. She applied for welfare, but was required to put the father’s name on the form. She used Carnell Alexander on the state paperwork, but never told Alexander.

The state claims Alexander was made aware of the claim when they served him at his Highland Park home, but Detroit Action News 7 (ABC) discovered this wasn’t the case at all. In fact, when the state claimed to have served Alexander, he was serving a jail sentence for an unrelated charge. This has been validated by Michigan Department of Correction’s records.

Alexander didn’t find out about the child or the mounting child support case against him until 1991 when he was pulled over for a traffic violation. It ended in his arrest for being a dead beat dad.

Since that day, he has been fighting, scraping and surviving this nightmare that seems to never end and is  threatening to force him into the homelessness or jail.

Alexander was in court on Friday, hoping for a new outcome and found a bit of a reprieve. The judge in the case pushed his case back a month to give his new attorney, Cherika Harris, time to catch up on the details of the case. Harris has taken the case pro bono.

Alexander told 7 Action News that no matter what happens, he cannot bring himself to pay money for a child a DNA test proves isn’t his and he has no connection to. “I haven’t even had a chance to speak to him except for one time when we took a DNA test,” Alexander told the news station.

“We can be defaulted into being a father of a child that is not ours,” Alexander told the news station. “I don’t understand the law, but we do have that law in place.”

SOUND OFF: What do you think about this case and the child support system in general?

Source: The Root