This is why, as a rule, you aren’t ordered to pay child support until the child is actually born:
A Federal Way woman is facing theft and perjury charges on allegations that she bilked a man out of thousands of dollars after faking her own pregnancy.
Filing charges earlier this month, King County prosecutors claimed Carmen Lynn Johnsen told a man she was seeing in December 2009 that she was pregnant with his child. Two pregnancy tests a month later showed she was not, but, prosecutors contend, she kept that to herself.
“Johnsen knew that she was not pregnant, yet did not inform (him) of this,” Federal Way Detective Scholl said in court documents. “Instead she told him that she had a history of high risk pregnancies and miscarriages and needed to be on bed rest with this pregnancy.”
Believing her to be telling the truth, the man began paying her $700 a month to support her non-existent child. In total, he paid her $3,500 in child support before the fraud was discovered in July 2009.
[…]
Investigators contend Johnsen went so far as to name her fictitious child in a death announcement and obituary printed in the newsletter of an antique bottle collectors club of which she is president.
“In Loving memory of Rebekah Lynn Johnsen,” the article read, according to police reports. “Becky was born asleep, 28 days premature, on July 23, 2009.”
Johnsen also approached the pastor of a Federal Way church in May, asking that a funeral be held for her child, Scholl told the court. Johnsen allegedly claimed she had miscarried after a car crash and cremated the child’s remains.
According to court documents, Johnsen gave the man a copy of the funeral announcement and photo of an urn purported to contain her child’s ashes in an effort to get him to pay $9,602 in hospital bills.
I’d say this would make an awful direct-to-cable movie, if Lindsay Lohan hadn’t already made it.
Damian J. Penny 
Melbourne is a surprisingly awesome city. It offers the full-blown city atmosphere of subways and shops everywhere and museums and all types of ethnic foods, but it has a safe, clean feeling. Probably because guns are very rare here, and although there is crime, it is not on the same violent level as it is in American cities.