Teh One Who Knocks
09-14-2018, 10:52 AM
By Douglass Dowty - syracuse.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Se4BvBzYY
Syracuse, NY -- Somewhere, some clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C. is dealing with Michael Rotondo.
Rotondo, 31, who made international fame for being evicted from his parents' house in Camillus, has filed three separate petitions to the country's highest court in the past year, according to Supreme Court records.
They all surround Rotondo's insistence that he can't afford to pay child support to his 8-year-old son.
His last petition will be circulated to the country's nine most powerful judges later this month, according to the court calendar.
And it will undoubtedly be dismissed, like the ones before it.
In fact, of the 10,000 or so petitions each year filed across the country in U.S. Supreme Court, less than 100 actually get heard by the judges.
The lawyer for his son's mother said she hasn't spent any time responding to Rotondo's Supreme Court petitions.
Inside the court papers
Rotondo's court papers contain an otherwise confidential decision by Onondaga County Family Court Judge Julie Cecile, in which she rips the deadbeat father for not paying child support.
The judge noted Rotondo's work history, which last included three months as a ski instructor from January to March 2017.
Before that, Rotondo worked for Best Buy from 2012 to 2015 as a sales associate. But he was fired, a termination that led to yet another lawsuit. (Rotondo claims he was discriminated against because Best Buy scheduled him to work on Saturdays, when he had visitation with his son.)
Rotondo apparently hasn't worked since March 2017. He remained jobless during a court appearance in late July and did not respond for comment on this story.
But Cecile also scolded Rotondo for his attempts to be employed -- as required so he can pay child support.
"He had only applied for two positions because he did not want to accept a position he did not think he could work at for at least three years, and for that reason he had ruled out working in retail or the fast food industry. Plainly, the foregoing is ample support for the... determination that Respondent-Father's efforts to find employment so he can support his child are woefully inadequate."
Cecile saved special ire, however, for Rotondo's decision to keep a $2,000-a-year storage locker for a broken 1989 Camaro and other belongings.
"When questioned why he did not sell such belongings, he claimed that they had no value except sentimental, and he had no legitimate answer for the obvious question of why it made sense to spend more than $9,000.00 over the last five years to store valueless belongings, at the same time asserting that he could not afford to pay support for his son."
Rotondo's self-reported expenses from April identify his $186-a-month storage locker as his second-largest expense after $200 a month in credit card payments. He submitted those figures to the Supreme Court in support of his inability to pay court fees.
Since Cecile's decision in September 2017, she has found Rotondo in willful violation of paying child support.
Rotondo was ordered in July to get a job and begin paying $55 a week in child support, or face up to six months in jail.
Rotondo narrowly avoided jail after initially refusing to sign conditions of probation.
It's unclear if Rotondo has begun to pay child support again.
So how did Rotondo get a case to the Supreme Court?
He filed a petition after New York courts ruled against him on the child-support issue. That set up a request for the nation's highest court to intervene.
He asked the Supreme Court to to order New York's highest court to rule on his case. Days later, the state's high court did just that on its own. He then asked the Supreme Court to keep the state from enforcing his child-support order. That was denied.
The only petition left is a request for the Supreme Court to overturn a magistrate's ruling that Rotondo could make $400 a week if he got a job.
"The Petitioner does not now, nor has he ever since this same support action commenced against him on February 22 2017, had the means to comply with this same support order imputing an income of $400 a week," Rotondo wrote in his April 9 petition.
He argued that the child-support ruling made a criminal out of an innocent person.
None of the nation's top judges will likely read one word of Rotondo's arguments. Seven of the nine judges "pool" their clerks to review all the cases, sending summaries and recommendations to the judges themselves. Two judges have clerks that read everything.
In any event, Rotondo's case is bound to die on a clerk's desk: the same fate as the two thrown out previously.
As for Rotondo, he remains a free man unless the local probation department decides that he's violated the rules: specifically, the order that he get a job and pay child support.
No probation violations have been filed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Se4BvBzYY
Syracuse, NY -- Somewhere, some clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C. is dealing with Michael Rotondo.
Rotondo, 31, who made international fame for being evicted from his parents' house in Camillus, has filed three separate petitions to the country's highest court in the past year, according to Supreme Court records.
They all surround Rotondo's insistence that he can't afford to pay child support to his 8-year-old son.
His last petition will be circulated to the country's nine most powerful judges later this month, according to the court calendar.
And it will undoubtedly be dismissed, like the ones before it.
In fact, of the 10,000 or so petitions each year filed across the country in U.S. Supreme Court, less than 100 actually get heard by the judges.
The lawyer for his son's mother said she hasn't spent any time responding to Rotondo's Supreme Court petitions.
Inside the court papers
Rotondo's court papers contain an otherwise confidential decision by Onondaga County Family Court Judge Julie Cecile, in which she rips the deadbeat father for not paying child support.
The judge noted Rotondo's work history, which last included three months as a ski instructor from January to March 2017.
Before that, Rotondo worked for Best Buy from 2012 to 2015 as a sales associate. But he was fired, a termination that led to yet another lawsuit. (Rotondo claims he was discriminated against because Best Buy scheduled him to work on Saturdays, when he had visitation with his son.)
Rotondo apparently hasn't worked since March 2017. He remained jobless during a court appearance in late July and did not respond for comment on this story.
But Cecile also scolded Rotondo for his attempts to be employed -- as required so he can pay child support.
"He had only applied for two positions because he did not want to accept a position he did not think he could work at for at least three years, and for that reason he had ruled out working in retail or the fast food industry. Plainly, the foregoing is ample support for the... determination that Respondent-Father's efforts to find employment so he can support his child are woefully inadequate."
Cecile saved special ire, however, for Rotondo's decision to keep a $2,000-a-year storage locker for a broken 1989 Camaro and other belongings.
"When questioned why he did not sell such belongings, he claimed that they had no value except sentimental, and he had no legitimate answer for the obvious question of why it made sense to spend more than $9,000.00 over the last five years to store valueless belongings, at the same time asserting that he could not afford to pay support for his son."
Rotondo's self-reported expenses from April identify his $186-a-month storage locker as his second-largest expense after $200 a month in credit card payments. He submitted those figures to the Supreme Court in support of his inability to pay court fees.
Since Cecile's decision in September 2017, she has found Rotondo in willful violation of paying child support.
Rotondo was ordered in July to get a job and begin paying $55 a week in child support, or face up to six months in jail.
Rotondo narrowly avoided jail after initially refusing to sign conditions of probation.
It's unclear if Rotondo has begun to pay child support again.
So how did Rotondo get a case to the Supreme Court?
He filed a petition after New York courts ruled against him on the child-support issue. That set up a request for the nation's highest court to intervene.
He asked the Supreme Court to to order New York's highest court to rule on his case. Days later, the state's high court did just that on its own. He then asked the Supreme Court to keep the state from enforcing his child-support order. That was denied.
The only petition left is a request for the Supreme Court to overturn a magistrate's ruling that Rotondo could make $400 a week if he got a job.
"The Petitioner does not now, nor has he ever since this same support action commenced against him on February 22 2017, had the means to comply with this same support order imputing an income of $400 a week," Rotondo wrote in his April 9 petition.
He argued that the child-support ruling made a criminal out of an innocent person.
None of the nation's top judges will likely read one word of Rotondo's arguments. Seven of the nine judges "pool" their clerks to review all the cases, sending summaries and recommendations to the judges themselves. Two judges have clerks that read everything.
In any event, Rotondo's case is bound to die on a clerk's desk: the same fate as the two thrown out previously.
As for Rotondo, he remains a free man unless the local probation department decides that he's violated the rules: specifically, the order that he get a job and pay child support.
No probation violations have been filed.