[Herald Tribune] Mom awarded $54K a year in T-Mac paternity case

The problem is T-Mac's wife probably doesn't want to have the other woman in her life for next 18 years. So since the child isn't her's she probably just wants the pair out of their life entirely. What happens when T-Mac starts making visiting his other child and his former lover? That won't go over too well with the wife.

The last thing T-Mac needs is a divorce having to pay 2 moms child support and with a traveling career he would have little luck in getting child custody of any of them. If this happened "the gold digger" might end up getting alot more money based on what he spends with his soon to be ex!

It just might force him to play in the league another 10 years.

 

ROTFLOL.......amen brother amen.......

 

Everyone is speculating about the case but you should read the case law. T-Mac actually has already done plenty for this woman. Here's what's in the case law:

Some background on Ms. Vega...she's 36 years old, a full-time student by choice, and also has two other kids--a college-age daughter and a son from another relationship who lives with his dad. She made $33,000 the year before as an employee at Saks and as a "self-employyed interior designer". It should also be noted that T-Mac doesn't contest the paternity of his duagher (Tracy Alexis Vega) and does not want custody.

1. T-Mac put her up in a Ritz-Carlton hotel for 3 weeks before she had the baby.

2. He had already been financially supporting her by paying the rent on her FOUR bedroom home and all of the furnishings

3. There was already a temporary child dupport order in place where he was paying almost $7,000 a month (McGrady was paying $6,880 even though he requested an even 7k and Vega requested $14,000).

The issue of how much child support should T-Mac pay came to a head when the court had to determine a permanent child support amount. Ms. Vega was asked to inform the court of a (then) 9-month old baby's living expenses. They included:

$2,500 a month for babysitting/day care
$1,200 a month for private lessons/tutoring (for a 9-month old!)
$1,000 a month for clothing/uniforms
$400 a month for entertainment
$500 a month for dry-cleaning (because she didn't want to wash and dry the baby's clothes)
$200 a month for grooming
$250 a month for gifts
$2,500 a month for vacations (there's not airline or amusement park or hotel or museum that I know of on the planet that charges 9-month-olds tickets, admission, or anything else).

Ms. Vega also had an income of about $11,000 a month ($7,000 from T-Mac and $4,000 from her mom).

Of course, with a list like this (which amazingly her lawyer let her do), the judge (a female judge FWIW) determined that these were not just the costs of raising baby Tracy, calling the needs list "exaggerated" (it included $300 shoes as a "need"). Instead, the court found it "abundantly clear" that Ms. Vega was using at least part of T-Mac's payments to pay for living expenses for herself, her daughter in college, her mother, her son who didn't even live with her.

As part of the temporary child support, the court upped T-Mac's child support to $8500, $1300 of which went to a "guardianship account".

When it came time for the permanent support amount, Ms. Vega determined that the baby was owed $17,000 a month, plus and extra $10,000 a month because this case was a "good fortune" case (ironically a term that came out of an identical paternity suit involving another former Magic player, Dennis Scott) which basically means one parent is extremely rich.

T-Mac countered and said that the baby is owed about $4500 plus all insurance, child care, and education costs as well as 90% of all medical costs that were above the amount that insurance covered.

The judge sided with T-Mac.

This lady basically got really greedy and tried in no way to hide it. Her lawyer is appealing, but with the potential payday he could get--of course he would. The Dennis Scott case was a Florida Supreme Court case. Precendent has been set, so I think that the chances of this decision being overturned are very slim.


http://www.heraldtribune.com/assets/pdf/SH11950619.PDF