Often, parents who fail to pay their child support payments stand the risk of having their driver's license suspended or, even worse, going to jail. In very rare cases, Colorado parents can still end up in jail even if the child does not belong to him or her. One man is thousands of dollars in child support debt for a child that is not his.

A court ordered a man to pay thousands of dollars in child support or risk going to prison. However, the child is not his. Back in 1991, the man was arrested for failure to pay $60,000 after he was pulled over in a traffic stop. Reportedly, he had fathered a child back in 1978, and though he supposedly received a court order for paternity in the 1980s, he apparently ignored it. He was eventually able to get a DNA test that proved he was not the father, but that still did not change his case.

The judge stated that, due to him not making contact 24 years ago, the court order is still enforced. The child's mother stated that she needed welfare assistance and, in order to get it, she put the man's name down on the paperwork. In the recent months, the judge removed the child support debt, but the man is still held responsible for $30,000 in welfare benefits that the mother received when child support payments were not made.

The man plans on fighting this case until the debt is removed, especially because the child is not his. He is entitled to preserve his legal rights and may be able to file an appeal. Colorado parents who are in a similar child support situation can explore those legal rights to increase the odds of having a favorable outcome and keep them out of financial trouble.

Source: wsmv.com, "Man fights $30k child support, says kid not his", Oct. 27, 2014