Finally, a man wins one in court...

I am all for making men, or women in some cases, pay child support, but if you know anybody (male) with recent experience in family court, the deck is stacked against men and the whole system is a poorly functioning bureaucracy. In this case, the tables got turned on the prosecutors office.

When his ex-wife falsely accused him of shirking on $3,632.25 in child support, Miami businessman Tony Schehtman discovered that the government had stripped him of his passport.

That sparked a lengthy legal dispute that ended in unusual fashion: a Miami-Dade judge chastised prosecutors for going along with the claim, then ordered them to pay Schehtman’s legal bills.

The judge’s unusually scathing order sanctions prosecutors and Schehtman’s ex-wife, ordering them to each pay $7,645 in legal fees. Circuit Judge Pedro Echarte, in his Jan. 8 order, called their actions “reprehensible” and “irresponsible.”

The judge said that even though Schehtman had proven he was not in arrears, the prosecutors failed to correct the wife’s claim, instead quibbling in court for months and hindering Schehtman’s ability to travel for work.

“This court finds that the State Attorney’s Office engaged in pointless litigation,” Echarte wrote.

Prosecutors have decided against asking a higher court to review the judge’s decision.