 Life and Style Magazine allegedly obtained the birth certificate of 15 year old, Ashley Horn, which shows Lohan’s father, Michael, as the father of Ashley.
This news broke as Lindsay was being released from jail. Apparently Ashley wants to reach out and support her half sister any way she can, but hasn’t been able to contact her.
The story behind Michael Lohan being Ashley Horn’s father is common to many families in the U.S. Ashley’s mother, Kristi, had an affair with Michael and had a child. She named Michael as the father and both were ordered to appear for a court ordered DNA test. Michael never showed, so the judge named him the father by default. He’s now responsible to support Ashley until the state says he no longer has to. Kristi claims Michael owes more than $300,000 in back child support.
Michael claims he is not the father. Unfortunately, it may be too late to take a test.
Each state is different in paternity suits. One consistency is that once a judge names a man the father, it is extremely difficult to change that even with DNA proof. If you have doubts or uncertainties, get a paternity test before a judge makes a child support order.
 A family court is requiring a man to take a DNA test in a paternity case, but this isn’t your ordinary case. The mother and the alleged father both know he’s not the biological father.
According to theage.com.au, the man in question signed a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity in order to gain access to the U.S. by following immigration guidelines. The man divorced the mother in 2006 after 4 years of marriage. Now he wants nothing to do with the child.
It seems Australian family law and U.S. family law vary in the way they look at the child’s best interest. According to the article, Australian law seeks to find the child’s true biological parents, whereas the U.S. seeks to find emotional and financial support for the child, regardless of biological relationship.
The court has ordered the DNA test, which seems to be a waste of time in this matter. We assume the results will come back negative. Should the guy be required to continue child support, which he has been paying since 2007, even if he’s not the biological father?
Let me know your thoughts.
 A neglect case at the Disctrict and Juvenile Court in Accra, Ghana took an odd turn when a court ordered DNA test showed neither the man or woman was biologically related to the 6 month old child in question.
Judge Cynthia Wiredu ordered a DNA test after the man claimed that the woman faked a pregnancy as part of a blackmail scheme. Judging by the article i found on peacefmonline.com, Celestine Owusu, the claimed mother, may have some issues. Ahe was arrested following the DNA test results.
Ms. Owusu denied the DNA test results, saying that they must not be accurate. As someone who has worked in DNA testing for four years, I’ve never seen a case like this, so I am inclined to believe her. Here are a couple ways the DNA test results could go wrong.
- The DNA collection facility may have switched the DNA samples, leading to a false negative.
- The facility may have mis-labeled the samples, noting the child as the father and vice-versa.
- The DNA laboratory may have switched the samples. Although rare, DNA sample switching in laboratories has happened.
Ms. Owusu is using her own money to pay for a retest. Hopefully she uses a reputable laboratory for this test. I will be anxiously awaiting the results.
 Families going through the immigration process understand that it takes time. A lot of time. Once clients call us to complete DNA tests, they are usually very close to being reunited with family members. Recently, many U.S. Embassies overseas have been changing guidelines and creating a delay in the DNA test.
In order to make sure your DNA test is being handled quickly and properly, please visit www.usembassy.gov. Click on the embassy that you are going through. Then type “DNA” into the search box.
Once you do that you should see specific instructions for completing DNA testing in your country. Your Boston Paternity case manager will work with you to make sure everything moves along as smoothly as possible.
If your DNA test is being requested by USCIS there may be different rules, such as where the beneficiary’s sample will be collected. Again, your case manager will work with you to follow the USCIS guidelines so Immigration will accept your results.
You can trust Boston Paternity to be up to date on the newest Embassy and USCIS rules and regulations regarding immigration DNA testing.
 CBS News reported Tuesday that police in Milledgeville, GA have requested DNA samples from Ben Roethlisberger in connection with assault allegations. Sexual assault cases use DNA testing extremely often to determine if the assailant and victim had contact.
It will be interesting to see whether Roethlisberger admits or denies sexual contact with the 20-year old college student. According to the CBS article, the woman went to police immediately following the incident. That gives police the highest possible probability of obtaining DNA evidence linking Roethlisberger.
The police department is analyzing security videos and using eye-witness testimony to get to the truth, but DNA evidence could be a deciding factor. DNA testing turns assault cases from a he said/she said into a case of facts.
Stay tuned to find out if forensic DNA is used as the basis for charges being filed against Big Ben.
The AP reported today that scientists in Rome are attempting to gain clearance into Leonardo Da Vinci’s alleged burial site. The purpose is to perform carbon and DNA testing to determine two things:
1. If the body is that of Da Vinci
2. If the Mona Lisa is a self portrait
Wow.
I don’t think exhuming a body that has been buried for almost 500 years will provide any evidence to support either of their goals. The likelihood of obtaining DNA is EXTREMELY rare. The best place to check would be a molar or femur. The DNA is likely degraded by now. Even if they do get a DNA sample, what will they compare it to? Without a known Da Vinci reference sample there’s nothing they can do to identify him using DNA.
On to goal number 2. These scientists think they can reconstruct Da Vinci’s bone structure using the remains, and figure out if the Mona Lisa is actually a self portrait.
My suggestion: Look at some actual portraits of Da Vinci.
Leave the guy alone.
 The USCIS has decided to change procedures in many of the foreign countries who suggest DNA testing for family based immigration cases.
In the past, U.S. DNA labs have sent testing supplies to physicians, who are authorized by the U.S. Embassy to perform DNA collections. In a slow moving process, U.S. Embassies across the globe are beginning to perform DNA collections at the Embassy itself, essentially cutting the physicians out of the loop.
This has caused significant delays in the DNA testing process for many families trying to immigrate to the U.S. We’ve noticed about 3 month delays with most countries making the transition. In addition, U.S. Embassies are not as equipped for DNA testing as the physicians.
For example, the Clinica Abreu, an authorized collection facility in the Dominican Rebublic, could handle more than 25 DNA cases each day. Now that testing has moved to the Embassy, DNA test appointments are limited to 10 cases.
The purpose of this change is to prevent any potential fraud. Although this may be effective at preventing this fraud, it is also creating a large time delay for many families who have been waiting years to see their loved ones.
View the immigration DNA testing procedures.
Evidence is coming out that DNA testing is sometimes wrong. What is considered by most people in the general public to be foolproof, DNA test results are assisting in the wrongful convictions of innocent citizens and contributing to child support payments for men who are not biological fathers. There are two reasons for bad DNA testing results; poor testing methods and poor interpretation.
60 minutes reported on a man who was wrongly convicted of rape and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The Houston crime lab said his DNA profile matched that of an evidence sample found at the crime scene. It turns out the profiles didn’t match at all. The test results were interpreted wrong.
DNA testing results show a series of peaks, which need to be interpreted manually by a trained scientist. The machines that produce the data do not produce the final results. When you get a scientist who is undertrained or under the watchful eye of biased parties, it’s easy to get wrong results.
Cross contamination can occur during evidence collection or DNA testing. This is another leading cause of poor results. Evidence samples mix with reference samples or other evidence samples. It ruins the whole test.
Laboratories have been knows to mix standard paternity testing samples in child support cases, leading to false exclusions. Again, data can be interpreted wrong and produce a false inclusion.
In any regard, it’s of utmost importance to check the qualifications and methods of any DNA testing laboratory you choose to use for testing. There are plenty of reputable labs out there. There are also plenty of labs like Houston.
I read an Associated Press article today, posted on miamiherald.com called, “Lugo accepts DNA test for third paternity claim”. Until recent years, paternity suits have had a stereotype of being delegated only to middle or lower class families, and are associated with the terms “child support” and “deadbeat dad”. A list of recent paternity suits that have reached the public eye has changed all that. Take the following list of names I pulled off the top of my head:
- Keanu Reeves
- Jude Law
- Eddie Murphy
- John Edwards
- Larry Birkhead
For a longer list, check out this celebrity paternity cases article. You’ll see that this has been happening for a long time.
The DNA test being required of Paraguay President Lugo is more surprising, however than all these others. At least to me. The AP reported that Lugo is a former priest, who resigned in only 2004 to get into politics. Talk about a mid-life crisis. This paternity suit is actually Lugo’s third. The first occurred while he was bishop of San Pedro. Now, I don’t know all the rules of being a bishop, so I won’t make any snap judgments to this claim. I don’t believe these claims have been substantiated.
This leads me to my point that many of these celebrities are being thrust into the negative light of paternity suits for many reasons. Some, maybe Lugo, because they actually fathered children to women who either want financial support or a father figure for the child, or both. Others, like Keanu, were targeted purely for financial reasons (the DNA test showed he did not father any of the woman’s 4 children).
What I’m getting at is paternity suits and DNA tests are not restricted to the lower class. U.S. DNA labs tested over 300,000 samples in 2007, the last reported year. That number is expected to grow.
In any case, these matters should remain out of the public eye. They should be kept behind closed courtroom doors to be worked out between the parties involved. I say this as I feed the media frenzy with my blog post. I suppose I am as anxious as anyone to see how Lugo’s DNA test results come out. At least he’s not going on Maury.
Reuters reported yesterday that the U.S. will implement strict DNA Testing guidelines for Guatemala Adoption cases, due to an increase in child trafficking. In the past, Guatemala has been a huge source of child adoptions by U.S. citizens. More recently, adoptions have been ceased because of child trafficking and fraud. DNA testing guidelin es will be a large step in curtailing this problem.
According to adoption.com, DNA testing must be completed prior to adoption approval by a company authorized by the U.S. A maternity test will be completed between the mother and child being put up for adoption.
The second phase of DNA testing comes when the child arrives in the U.S. A DNA sample must be taken from the child and compared with the DNA profile from the first test to ensure that the child has not been switched.
Although painful for U.S. families trying to adopt and the attorneys going though the steps to help them, DNA testing seems necessary to prevent child trafficking. Families spend upwards of $50,000 to adopt a child from Guatemala. $1000 to complete DNA testing in order to make sure the child is willingly being given up by the mother seems like a small price to pay.
Be on the lookout for more posts about the procedures for completing DNA testing for Guatemala adoptions.
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