When I was 2 (back in the 1970s), my parents divorced and my father was given visitation rights twice a month. He was also ordered to pay child support until I turned 18. He was to send a certified check to Cook County every month for $800, of which $500 would be sent to my mother, and the other $300 would go to the County for "processing". My father never missed a payment, although my mother sometimes received her check late from the County - one time it was 3 months' late. At that point, she refused to let my father see me until he brought her the cancelled checks, and he showed up with three months' of cancelled child support payments that the County had received on-time but simply "forgot" to pay.
After my 18th birthday (when I was already in college), my father stopped sending payments. The County notified my mother and also threatened to sue him for non-payment. When he presented the divorce decree, a case worker at the County told him that the County decided he needed to pay until I was out of my mother's care, and that the County's decision superceded the divorce decree. The County threatened several more times to file suit but never actually did.
Has anyone else had such a miserable experience of the corruption of Cook County government? I think of all the money that was wasted with the $300/month fees my father had to pay - and how much better that money would have served him or my mother or me. That would have amounted to more than $50,000 over the 16 years, and would have easily paid for my college tuition.
Sorry to sound bitter, another question on here made me remember this ridiculous debacle, and I wonder if we simply had the world's most corrupt case worker, or if Cook County is this treacherous with every one of its residents.
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