OK Guys give me some help with this case. I am sure everyone is aware of it by now, but I am still posting the column by a reporter named Jill Porter which was taken from the Philadelphia Daily News. I don’t want to say too much because I am very familiar with the case (A colleague of mine actually prosecuted Mr. Caldwell a few years back) and I want to keep my law license 
So after you read this article-which was written with an unapologetic slant- let me know what you think.
“IF LOSING HER beloved son Kenny on 9/11 was unbearable for Philadelphia mom Elsie Goss-Caldwell, what’s happened since is unconscionable.
Kenny’s father, who she says abandoned the family when Kenny was a toddler and played no role in his life, is seeking to profit from his death.
In an act of shameless greed, Leon Caldwell Sr. has filed for half of the nearly $3 million awarded to Kenny’s estate from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001.
“It’s not even about the money – how dare you insult Kenny’s memory?” seethed Goss-Caldwell, of West Philadelphia.
“To think you’re supposed to sit back and profit off of Kenny? No. That’s not right. That’s not respecting him at all.”
Goss-Caldwell intends to be in a Brooklyn court today, seeking to disqualify her ex-husband from receiving any part of the estate.
And what does the paragon of fatherhood have to say for himself?
He said he stopped seeing Kenny and his other son, Leon Jr., when his ex-wife “prevented him from continuing to do so,” according to a legal brief filed by his lawyer.
Goss-Caldwell denies it.
And, by his own account, that would have been around 1976 – 25 years before Kenny died.
Caldwell never sought visitation or custody in court – couldn’t afford a lawyer, he claims – and never attempted to re-establish a relationship when Kenny grew up.
According to Elsie, he last saw Kenny in 1984, at her mother’s funeral, 17 years before Kenny’s death.
As Elsie’s lawyer, Paul J. Bschorr, put it so succinctly in his brief, Caldwell “abandoned Kenny and had nothing to do with him until the smell of money brought him forth.”
Caldwell, a cook, and Goss-Caldwell, a tax practitioner, had been married for six years when he left the family and moved in with an aunt in Paterson, N.J., in 1974.
According to his court pleadings, he saw Kenny and his older son, Leon Jr., every weekend for the next year.
But when Goss-Caldwell stopped letting him see them at her home and told him to arrange visits at her mother’s house, his visits got “sporadic.”
That’s the insurmountable “impediment” he cited as the reason he soon vanished from their lives.
And while he claims to have supported the boys financially, he was still more than $12,000 in arrears on court-ordered child support when Kenny died, Elsie’s brief said.
At $30 a week, that’s a lot of missed payments.
“He simply was not around,” Goss-Caldwell’s legal brief said.
“Not around for family gatherings, birthdays, holidays or graduations; not around to counsel the boys; not around to attend their sports and school functions; in sum, not around as a parent should be.”
Caldwell was so estranged from the family that when Kenny died, Goss-Caldwell didn’t even think to contact him.
“He was the last thought on my brain,” she said.
Kenny had called his mom the morning of Sept. 11 to tell her he loved her, but had to get out of the World Trade Center because of “a bomb.”
He was an executive for a consulting company on the 102nd floor of the North Tower – the first building hit by the terrorists. His body was never found.
Elsie’s agonizing search for her son and her refusal to accept his death was chronicled in gut-wrenching stories by Barbara Laker in the Daily News.
Weeks after Kenny vanished in the rubble, she left messages on his cell phone beseeching him not to give up, that “Mommy” was still looking for him.
She continued paying rent on his Brooklyn apartment, which she’d visit and keep clean, in case her miracle came true and he came home.
She was reluctant to sign his death certificate months after 9/11, because “to me that meant like that was the end, you were giving up,” she told me.
“My pastor said it doesn’t mean that, it’s just paperwork.”
But when she showed up to fill out a death certificate, she was told she wasn’t listed as next of kin for Kenny, who was unmarried and had no children.
His long-estranged father had signed the papers, seeking to be a beneficiary of his estate.
Caldwell‘s attempt to exploit the death of his son is as naked an act of greed as I can imagine – an affront to Goss-Caldwell and an assault on Kenny’s soul.
“Kenny would hate that he’s taking me through all this,” Goss-Caldwell said. “Kenny would tell him to ‘leave my mom alone.’ “
If there’s any justice in a world so cruel as to take her “baby boy” from her, the Surrogate’s Court will do just that. *”
We will see what this Judge up in Brooklyn does in about thirty days or so.
Um… The whole story is already appalling, but I found the following even more outrageous.
“But when she showed up to fill out a death certificate, she was told she wasn’t listed as next of kin for Kenny, who was unmarried and had no children.
His long-estranged father had signed the papers, seeking to be a beneficiary of his estate.”
What the hell? What kind of man is this? Is he a crack addict or something? Does he have no shame? Has he any dignity?
Of course, I believe that the judge will rule on the side of the mother. (At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.) But the judge ought to make this man pay up for the trouble that he is putting her through.
On the back in of Father’s Day we get a story like this. Lord, have mercy!
I am not sure what you are asking, exactly, but if the facts of the case are as stated in the article, then I hope the judge sends this guy off with nothing.
I agree, it’s not even the idea of the money so much as it’s… if he couldn’t find the time or the effort to be around and to support him when the young man was growing up, or even when he was an adult, it’s too late now to find the time and effort to show up in order to profit from his death.
“I am not sure what you are asking..”
I am just trying to get different opinions Nanette. I can tell from your comments and Angie’s that you think this case is a no -brainer. Still, there are two sides to every story. I am somewhat familiar with the other side of this story as well, based on some things that I have seen.
So what if I told you that he ( Mr. Caldwell) was a dishwasher earning $5.50 an hour and he couldn’t afford a lawyer to try to file for visitation of his children? And what if I told you that there was a worker’s compensation settlement claim that Mr. Caldwell had that paid off the $12,000 child support debt he owed to Elsie Caldwell?And that the $30 weekly child support order was based on Pa.R.C.P. 19.10 which took into account Mr. Caldwell’s earning capacity at the time the order was entered; would you feel the same way?
Just a question. And BTW, before someone calls me out as a sexist or something, I am playing “devil’s advocate” here, so please don’t lock me into the position I just articulated.
Peace.
Field if we dont have all of the stipulating facts in this case then it is hard to come to an informed conclussion.
I do no this the family must be made into priority # 1 and not just talk either.
If as you said their are 2 sides to every story but you have only presented some of the facts of the case. I dont think you can expect informed or fair assessments over this situation.
Ill say this if the father didnt make an effort to communicate with his son, then the lawsuit he is filing for his sons memorial money is outrageous and hopefully as has been said before the case will be thrown out.
I appreciate the work you do here.
But I KNOW one of the Caldwells personally. And you putting this story here hurts my heart for a few reasons:
1. There is nothing any of us can do…unlike the Shaquanda Cotton case.
2. The story itself is very straightforward…and the only way it doesn’t become straightforward is by you divulging other parts of the story.
3. This doesn’t deal with issues of racism, classism (both Caldwells are working class, even though both Kenny and Leon Jr. have been successful), or sexism. This is a micropolitical issue….a painful case of a former married duo.
4. I know (first hand) that regardless of the claims that Sr. is making, he was never a presence in the lives of his sons.
I am asking you to remove this story. If you aren’t willing to do that, I would strongly urge you to reframe it in a way that discussion of this intensely personal issue brings to bear larger questions.
Lester, no disrespect intended to the Caldwell family. I am sure they are wonderful people. From all accounts the mother did a great job in raising her sons all by herself.
But the truth of the matter is that this story is in the public arena. The story above was taken from the Philadelphia Daily News, and I have revealed nothing about this case that is not public knowledge.
And as for why I posted it; this story has some larger issues attached to it which effects us all as people of color. The issue of the absent parent is a serious one in our community, and the lack of a father figure in our homes can have a detrimental effect on the children involved. (Although thanks to the good work of Mrs. Caldwell it wasn’t the case here)
“So what if I told you that he ( Mr. Caldwell) was a dishwasher earning $5.50 an hour and he couldn’t afford a lawyer to try to file for visitation of his children? And what if I told you that there was a worker’s compensation settlement claim that Mr. Caldwell had that paid off the $12,000 child support
debt he owed to Elsie Caldwell?And that the $30 weekly child support order was based on Pa.R.C.P. 19.10 which took into account Mr. Caldwell’s earning
capacity at the time the order was entered; would you feel the same way?
Just a question.”
Hmmm… Are these hypotheticals, or are we talking facts? Field, it’s obvious that you know more about this matter than us. I am not going to ask you to release what you know. I want you to hang on to that law license too. But I agree with Mark in that it is difficult to make a proper assessment of this story if we don’t have all the said facts.
But still, my brother, even with your hypotheticals and/or facts you threw out there, I’m still wondering why this brother would want to fight for the money now. Even if the mother didn’t allow him access to the child, how does he explain his absence once the child became an adult? This man had plenty time to recapture a relationship with his son. Why didn’t he?
Look, this story is sad all the way around. I feel sorry for the man for not getting and/or taking the time to know and love his child as a father should. I could care less about the bucks. A man is dead. Time is loss. And all the money in the world can’t replace the man or the time. He should scratch this one as a loss, and move on. Let the mother have the money. If he got the money, what purpose would it serve at this point? The fact is that he wasn’t there for his child, by his doing or the mother’s doing. So, he shouldn’t get the money.
Field, I understand that things are never as simple as they seem. But based on the information that I have in front of me, this is how I see it. And of course, Field, I see it differently from you. I’m on the outside, without inside reflections. I’m not a lawyer, I’m a counselor. And I don’t have the added benefit of having heard about this story before this week.
So, with all that being said, my opinion on the matter really doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. It’s an opinion based on loosely gathered facts and assumptions. So, that’s what I think at this point.
My nickel…
Ah, Field, well I did say “if the facts are as stated” or something similar, but there is always more to the story.
As I hadn’t heard of this case before yesterday and don’t know everything, I’ll just go with the one thing that sticks out to me about this story (if it is correct), far more than the lack of child support and even with all the mitigating factors you’ve introduced.
17 years. He’d not seen his son (either of them, I guess?) for 17 years. Even if it comes out that he was somehow prevented (not just from the house of visitation being moved, but refusal to let him see them or something) from doing so when they were children, that doesn’t hold up for after he/they turned 18.
I don’t know what would excuse that, not just in this case but in any case (if we are applying to wider absent fatherhood, so on).
I couldn’t bring myself to read all of the facts above, but I suspect I know what happened anyway.
(Kind of like the way we diagnose “racism” in others, “fast and dirty”.) This guy abandoned the children, in childhood and then in adulthood, because there was no strong financial incentive and a strong financial disincentive to take responsibility for them. But, when the financial cost-benefit picture changed, he decided to become involved in their lives again. That analysis explains both why he left and why he came back.
Now let my explain my sarcastic quip above. I am coming to the belief that one of the reasons that the mental illness of “racism” is incurable is because our “racism doctors” are incompetent. You really can’t blame us for being incompetent. Where would any of us have studied racism as a psychiatric issue in order to learn how to treat it? Are there any clinical programs in “racism treatment”? Where is the “inpatient racism treatment centers” where psychiatrists would learn to love removing racism from other people’s minds?
If any of us of diagnoses another as “racist,” ask that person to tell you whether this particular case of racism is “mild,” “moderate” or “severe.” You’ll quickly find that you interlocutor is utterly unable (and uninterested) in making this distinction, which really means that the person is incompetent to make a useful diagnosis. The person is making an accusation, not a diagnosis.
When we have more diagnosis and less accusation, we might find that “racism” is more curable than we’ve been led to believe. Even alcoholics divide themselves into “high bottom” and “low bottom.”
I am surprise that parents of an adult were awarded anything.
It would seem also that the mother would be profiting from her son’s death too. I would have hoped that her son had life insurance and she the beneficiary, so that she would not have a hardship burying him. Unless the son was taking care of his mother, I can’t seeing her claim any more valid than his father.