A man paid $18K in child support — But DNA Says He’s NOT the Father! – The judge’s ruling? He still owes | HO

It was only later, Wallace said, that he began to suspect the child might not be his.

‘I later found out through some digging of my own what the man that she had an affair with — he’s back together with — what he looks like,’ Wallace said. ‘He looks a lot like my son who I thought was my son.’

He produced photographs of the boy for the court.

‘He doesn’t look like me,’ Wallace said.

Gar, now in a relationship with the man she had the affair with, insisted she had no reason to doubt her husband was the father.

‘This is embarrassing and very personal to admit,’ she said. ‘When he was conceived, I was having unprotected sex with Bradley and I was having protected sex along with taking the pill with Dylan.’

She said she and Wallace had been trying to conceive and had switched from protected to unprotected sex specifically to start a family.

‘I have been having protected sex for years. I’ve never gotten pregnant,’ she said. ‘Then we have unprotected sex and I get pregnant. I never questioned it.’

The court ordered DNA testing to resolve the question of paternity once and for all.

Judge Lauren Lake, presiding over the case, prepared to deliver the results.

‘I always say — the woman can lie, the man can lie, plaintiffs can lie, defendants can lie — but the only thing that doesn’t lie is DNA,’ Lake said.

The results were definitive.

‘In the case of the child born to Miss Jenny Gar, it has been determined by this court: Mr. Wallace, you are not the father,’ Lake announced.

Wallace’s eyes welled with tears. Gar, too, appeared visibly shaken.

‘This is what paternity secrets do,’ Lake said. ‘This is what happens when you have paternity secrets. And as we move through life and find comfort under the covers, we end up with confusion that casts doubts on the paternity of our children. And that does not feel good.’

But the legal outcome was not what Wallace expected.

Despite the DNA evidence proving he was not the biological father, Lake ruled that Wallace’s name on the birth certificate made him the legal father under Tennessee law.

‘You’re the legal father,’ Lake told him. ‘You’re going to owe that child support anyway because you are the man she was married to.’

Gar, who had been accused by Wallace of fraudulently accepting child support payments she knew he did not owe, broke down in court.

‘Do you think that I wanted this?’ she asked. ‘And now you’re trying to make a fool out of me?’

Wallace remained unmoved.

‘You know what, Miss Gar?’ he said. ‘I would feel sorry for you except for the fact that you did. You did know this.’

Lake denied Wallace’s petition to recover the $18,000 in child support payments, ruling in favor of Gar.

‘Your petition is denied. Judgment for the defendant,’ Lake said. ‘Court is adjourned.’

The decision left Wallace liable for future child support payments despite not being the child’s biological father — a legal reality that critics say highlights the complex and often unforgiving nature of paternity laws in the United States.w