“It’s a circle of hell there’s just no way out of,” Schochet said. “I paid it as long as I could.”

A number of readers have emailed this article from Bloomberg News:

Ari Schochet has grown so accustomed to being sent to jail for missing alimony payments that he goes into a routine.

Before his family-court hearing, Schochet, 41, sticks on a nicotine patch to cope with jailhouse smoking bans, sends an “Ari Off the Grid” e-mail to friends and family, and scrawls key phone numbers in permanent ink on his forearm.

The former Citadel Investment Group Inc. portfolio manager, who once earned $1 million a year, has been jailed for missing court-ordered payments at least eight times in the past two years as he coped with the end of his 17-year marriage.

The reason he ran afoul of the law was simple. He was out of work for most of that time, a victim of a weak economy, and he ran through his savings trying to pay his wife alimony and child support that totaled almost $100,000 a year.

“It’s a circle of hell there’s just no way out of,” Schochet said. “I paid it as long as I could.”

Here is the saddest part about Schochet’s case:

“When I tell people what’s happened to me these last two years they say, ‘Your story can’t possibly be true, and you must be in court because you beat your wife,’” Schochet said. “This has nothing to do with anything other than money.”

Both men and women always think it’s the guy’s fault when he gets screwed over by the courts. White Knights and Uncle Tims smugly think this type of treatment won’t happen to them and treat other men like crap.

Here is the bottom line. No man should be in jail for not being able to pay this type of support, particularly the alimony. It is unjust, unfair and an infringement of human rights. Anyone who supports these laws is a tyrant. They are slowly being changed in some states as discussed in the article, and also note that it is often Democrats who are proposing change and White Knight Republicans like Florida Governor Rick Scott who veto them, though they often have pressure from women’s groups who want these antiquated laws to continue their privileged lifestyles.