Senator Has Two Homes

Keep in mind as you read this that this guy is on a Senate Committee overseeing CHILD WELFARE. I thnk he may be OVER qualified for this position...

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) -- A state lawmaker who heads a committee on child welfare has acknowledged that he lives in separate homes with two women whose children he fathered.

(Democratic) Sen. John Ford ... has tried to make use of a law he authored that keeps court-ordered support lower when a father is financially responsible for other children.

In the hearing, Ford said he lives some days with ex-wife Tamara Mitchell-Ford and the three children they had together. On others, he said, he stays with his longtime girlfriend, Connie Mathews, and their two children.

Ford and Mitchell-Ford went through a bitter divorce in 2002 that led to Mitchell-Ford's jailing after she plowed her car through Mathews' home.

Ford said he pays nearly all bills for both families. They stay in houses he owns and where he also lives, though neither home is in his south Memphis Senate district.

"You have two homes?" court Referee Felicia Hogan asks during the tape recorded hearing. "Well, that's unusual."
"Not necessarily," Ford shot back. "I know people who got five."
Hogan responded: "For child support purposes that's unusual, let me put it that way then."

Ford is battling a lawsuit filed by Dana Smith, who is trying to increase his court-ordered support of their 10-year-old daughter. Smith, a former employee under Ford, won a 1996 sexual harassment verdict against him.

Ford contends that any increase for Smith should be tempered by his financial obligations to his five other minor children. None of those children is subject to child support orders.

In the hearing, Ford argued that all five children live in his household -- a household that encompasses two homes -- and because of that he is exempt from rules requiring strict proof of his financial support of them.

Hogan rejected Ford's request, saying he must produce evidence of bills paid if he wants credit to lessen any modification of Smith's child support.

Mitchell-Ford told The Commercial Appeal last week that she can verify at least some of Ford's contentions. She said she is six months pregnant, and the father, she said, is John Ford, now 62.

"John is over here every single day, if not staying here," she said.