Fatherhood Coalition Leaders To Protest Jailing of Father

Fatherhood Coalition Leaders To Protest Jailing of Father

John Flaherty In Jail for Not Paying ‘Phony’ Arrearages

By Ed Oliver
November 9, 2001

The Fatherhood Coalition will be protesting the jailing of one of their officers, John Flaherty, on Tuesday, November 13, from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Middlesex County Probate & Family Court, Cambridge.

Flaherty went to jail on Monday to begin serving a five-month sentence for his inability to pay $10,000 toward what he contends is a phony arrearage in child support obligations. He says it was maliciously created against him by his ex-wife.

Some fathers believe this should be made into an important landmark case while some observers say they should raise the money to have Flaherty released from prison so he can fight for his rights. The latter also point out that this case is a convoluted monster which has gone on for more than six years and will be difficult to present to the public in simple terms, particularly since everyone is now preoccupied with the war.

"For the record, John Flaherty was jailed based on hearsay statements made by his ex-wife regarding his income,” said Mark Charalambous, a spokesman for the Fatherhood Coalition. “Flaherty vehemently denies all the charges and asserts that he would easily disprove them if he had been given a trial; but Judge Beverly Boorstein rejected his motion for a trial, and initially sent him to jail without even writing Findings of Fact.”

Flaherty served five hours of his jail sentence back on October 1. At that time, Judge Boorstein told him to come up with the $10,000 or go to jail for five months. Flaherty, who supports himself by teaching physics and math at colleges, said he could not pay. He was immediately sent to jail but was released temporarily after the Massachusetts Appeals Court granted him an emergency stay.

During that hearing before Judge Boorstein, five or six Fatherhood Coalition friends stood up in court in protest for one hour despite the direct orders of court officers. “They were clearly at risk of being arrested, but it was testament to their awareness and justified outrage of the widespread judicial terrorism that the Probate & Family court imposes on divorced fathers,” said Flaherty about the incident.

The temporary stay granted by the Massachusetts Appeals Court only lasted until Judge Boorstein produced Findings of Fact to justify her decision.

“It was a horrendously malicious finding which has no basis in fact. There was no trial so therefore it was all allegations. She took three weeks to create them. They were simply copied and unsupported allegations from my ex-wife. Not an ounce of proof was supplied,” said Flaherty.

“When the Mass. Appeals judge received the findings from Boorstein, he stopped the stay about five or six days ago. I immediately went to the SJC, a single justice, to see if they would maintain the stay but they denied it. That took about three or four days. Then I went to Federal District Court last Friday to see if they could give me a writ of Habeas Corpus to keep me out of jail because I had no trial,” said Flaherty.

Flaherty said the federal judge treated his request as a non-emergency suit last Friday, meaning it would take five or six weeks to process. Flaherty was ordered by Judge Boorstein to turn himself in to the Middlesex County Jail on Monday, which he did; but he also sent a runner to federal court to try to get a stay of the incarceration pending an appeal of the federal judge’s non-emergency action taken on Friday. He also appealed to the full state SJC on Monday to exhaust any state remedy.

Flaherty said he teaches five courses at three colleges, and after an absence of five or six days he will lose all those courses and possibly his future in teaching. “All those students will get screwed too on account of this,” he said.

Flaherty said he’s been in P&F court over the last eight years some 35 times and was successful reversing terms of his Divorce Judgment and reversing 3 previous Contempt Judgments brought against him by his ex-wife. He said he also submitted nine judicial conduct complaints against six judges.

“The complaints clearly show outrageous judicial behavior and lack of due process that so accurately reflects today's Probate and Family Court judges,” said Flaherty.