Twin Attempts To Help Brother Evade Child Support So Judge Orders Both To Pay

Oct 29, 2021 by apost team

Having a twin is definitely a unique experience. It can be fun to have someone you can share clothes with, always have someone to try new activities with and someone you know will be your best friend. If they wanted to, identical twins could even pull some sneaky pranks on their friends or classmates by switching places for a day. This is usually done all in good fun, but what happens when twins decide to switch places in order to avoid a penalty?

That’s what one pair of identical twin brothers from Goiás, Brazil found out in April 2019. One of the twins had been in a relationship with a woman and got her pregnant. They were no longer in each other’s lives, but the woman needed help caring for her child. In order to receive child support from the father, she had to prove that the twin she had been with was in fact the baby’s father.

When it came time to take a paternity test, the woman got the results she had hoped for and it came back that the twin was the father. However, he denied that it was him, and said that his twin was actually the baby’s father. The other brother also took a test which strangely also came back as positive, making it tricky to figure out who the actual father was.

The judge overseeing this particular case did not let this faulty DNA test deter him from delivering justice, and he ruled that both twins must pay maintenance for the child.

According to the Guardian, this child support case began in 2017 after the woman took the twin she had had a short relationship with to court to prove that he was the father of her child. Her lawyer explained that she only had relations with the man once and it resulted in a pregnancy.

The twin took a DNA test, but also had his identical twin brother take one. While the test showed that the first twin was the father, it also showed that there was a 99.9% chance that the second twin was the father, because identical twins come from the same fertilized egg and have the same DNA, according to the Guardian.

Judge Filipe Luís Peruca ruled that both twins would have to pay maintenance, with each contributing $60 a month, or 30% of the minimum salary in Brazil, as per BBC News. This is twice as much as cases in the same economic class. The judge also ruled that the names of both brothers would be on the child’s birth certificate.

The mother was unhappy with this and believed her now 9-year-old child deserved to know who her father is. “It’s a very sad attitude, there was no need for this,” she said. “They know the truth but took advantage of the similarity to escape responsibility.” This was not a one time occurrence, as the court found that the twins had been using their identical appearance to “hide betrayals and win over more women” since adolescence.

The mother plans to appeal. The Guardian reported that a more detailed “twin test” could be done, but would cost about $15,773 and may not necessarily be conclusive.

apost.com

Were you surprised to find out about this case? Do you believe the judge was right to order both men to pay? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to your family and friends, too.