Is Former NFL Player Clint Session A Deadbeat Dad?

Former NFL star Clint Session is being accused of being a deadbeat dad after he has refused to pay child support for his profoundly disabled daughter. The former player, who has a contract through 2016, has been unable to play due to repeated concussions. Session claims he is penniless, though investigations into his finances say otherwise.

According to an earlier report in the Inquisitr, Session has a daughter named Ashton, 3, with Davia Bradshaw. Following her birth in 2012, she was diagnosed with a rare brain defect which includes Cerebral Palsy and encephalopathy, better known as water on the brain. She is unable to walk, eat normal food, and is nearly blind.

Session has now been called a deadbeat dad in the press and was referred to as the legal equivalent by Judge Arthur Birken who has presided over the child support case in his decision.

“According to the judgment, between April 2012 and December 2014, Session paid Bradshaw $75,100 for care. The payments, however, came in erratic bundles (and one check even bounced, court paperwork says). When Bradshaw took her ex to court to establish a routine pay schedule, Session represented himself, claiming he had no income, not even enough money to hire an attorney.”

“What was really happening was some financial sleight of hand. Bradshaw’s legal team subpoenaed Session’s bank records and hired a forensic accountant, which revealed that between October 2011 and November 2012, before Ashton’s birth and the developmental issues came to light, Session had handed over $5.1 million to his parents—’an attempt,’ in the words of Judge Arthur Birken, ‘to circumvent and specifically intended to avoid paying his proper child support obligation.'”

Judge Birken said he tried to maintain neutrality, but the deadbeat dad behavior of Sessions and the lengths that were gone to in order to hide money swayed the court in the mother’s favor, causing the judge to order Session to pay $6,900 a month plus $2,000 a month to make up for back child support.

“The conduct,” the judge wrote, “has in the Court’s mind, made it impossible to maintain neutrality.” Birkin also wrote that he was walking “with great reluctance.”

“The mother and child appear to reside in a room while the father lives in an $800,000 house that is paid in full,” the judge wrote. “The father does not appear to understand the magnitude of the child’s need.”

The Washington Post reports that Session’s daughter requires care 24/7, and that the responsibility for that care and financial support has been totally on Bradshaw.

Do you think Clint Session is a deadbeat dad?

[Photo courtesy of Zimbio]