---

Default Daddyhood
...A court entered a default judgment against Sharpe, and for the next six years, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania hounded the former trash collector to collect child support for the girl. He lost his job, paid more than $12,000 in support and fines, became estranged from his family (he has four kids of his own), and was jailed four times for failing to make payments. The county denied his repeated requests for a DNA paternity test (and were backed up by the courts), arguing that its domestic relations officials had sufficiently confirmed paternity "after reasonable investigation."

Walter Sharpe's attorney alleges that when he appeared in person with personal information proving he couldn't be the father, county officials merely changed the biographical information on the custody forms to match Walter Sharpe's.

After looking into Sharpe's story, the Patriot-News newspaper was able to determine the child's real father, Andrew Sharpe, in less than an hour. That's because the girl has been living with him for the last four years. The girl's grandmother (who had custody for a time) says the real father has supported the girl the entire time. The article isn't clear on where Walter Sharpe's support payments have gone. ...