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Liberty Medal for Courage Winner: ‘Child Support is ruining my life’

New York City, NY–“In the summer of 2003 I was riding the subway home [when]…I witnessed a woman being slashed. This guy…slashed her across her face as she sat there, and ran off the train…I chased him and…held him until the police arrived, getting cut on my wrist, he had a knife in each hand…

“I was awarded by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and was awarded the NY Post Liberty Medal for Courage [and] was…on the John Walsh Show. But all this really meant nothing to me, it was my daughter that I held most important.”–Anthony Gallo

Liberty Medal for Courage winner Anthony Gallo (pictured above with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani) recently sent me a letter detailing his problems with the Child Support Enforcement bureaucracy. Gallo writes:

Dear Glenn:

I am really down and out right now. Child Support is ruining my life. C.O.L.A modified my payments back in 2006. They lowered it from $200 a week to $115 a week. I have always made my payments (every week) my company takes it before I see it. I am a sub-contractor and have no health insurance.

Child Support Enforcement contacted me close to a year ago and claimed that I was in arrears of $20,000. I went down to the Support Agency with the new modification document and no one wanted to hear it, so I copied all my paperwork and mailed it “Certified” mail. No one contacted me at all.

Now my personal bank account with money that my dad left me when he died (life insurance, the money is to fix the house) and my business account has been frozen. They put a lean on more money than they claim I owe. I can’t even go to work because when I deposit my check in my business account they keep it. Cash checking won’t accept it.

I feel so discriminated against. I went to court today and the only thing they did for me was to give me a court date for Nov.12. How do I eat until then? How do I pay my bills? How do I survive without any means to live?

Glenn, I don’t get it. All I ever wanted was to be a parent to my daughter. I always paid what I was supposed to. Now I really feel cheated, lost. No help out there. I don’t know what to do

I get letters like this every day. I haven’t independently verified Gallo’s story, but I’ve dealt with him on other matters and he’s seemed to be a credible individual in general.

Gallo has written a book about his struggle to see his daughter–A Father’s Right.

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