Judge Allows Father To Pay Child Support In Pizza, Baker Gives Ex-Wife $450 In Baked Goods Each Month

An Italian judge ruled that a divorced father could pay his ex-wife child support in pizza. The father worked at a takeaway pizza parlor and fell on hard times. As a result, he was unable to afford the $450 per month child support his ex-wife was awarded by the courts. Therefore, he started providing the woman with free pizza, calzones, and other baked goods instead.

The Daily Mail reported that an Italian father was struggling to pay his $450 per month child support for his daughter, and began offering free food to the child’s mother in lieu of cash payments. Unable to pay his child support in cash, the father began delivering free pizza, calzones, and other bakery treats to his ex-wife each month. The baked items totaled at least $450 each month and were the only thing the baker father said he could provide at the time.

#Pizza is a valid form of currency. https://t.co/B32z11hF4w

— Tortorice’s Pizza (@TortoricesPizza) May 28, 2016

However, the ex-wife was not happy with the pizza child support payments and demanded cash instead. After getting fed up with the free food deliveries, the ex-wife filed a criminal complaint against her ex-husband, noting he was not following through with the stipulations in the divorce agreement which required $450 in child support each month.

The Telegraph names the divorced couple as Nicola Toso and Nicoletta Zuin. The pair split in 2002 and the divorce agreement outlined that the ex-husband would provide his ex-wife with $450 in child support each month to help support the daughter the pair share together. The father reportedly made all of the payments until 2008, when Italy experienced a financial crisis. After the financial ruin, the father said he was no longer able to afford to child support payments but did his best to ensure that the ex-wife received at least $450 worth of food from his takeaway business each month.

“In lieu of money, the defendant offered his ex-wife the same amount of compensation in the form of take-away pizzas from his workplace, an offer promptly rejected as ‘beggar’s change.'”

While the wife called the attempts to offer pizza “beggar’s change,” the father’s defense attorney said it was truly all the father could offer at the time. The man had remarried and had three children with his new wife. He was struggling to make ends meet while also following through on other custody obligations. In fact, the father said he never missed a visit with his daughter and upheld every single other custody obligation outlined in their divorce agreement. The baker’s daughter testified to that fact in court on his behalf.

The man’s attorney noted that things got so bad financially for the father in 2010 that he was forced to close his pizza business, as he didn’t have enough money to pay his employees or vendors. Therefore, the judge ruled that the baker father had done his best during the financially difficult times and that the pizza payments were sufficient in light of his financial status.

To further the father’s defense case, it was disclosed that in 2011, just one year after the father’s business collapsed, his daughter chose to move in with him. The relationship between the daughter and her mother had deteriorated to the point that the daughter decided she would rather live with her father in his home with her half-siblings and step-mother.

With the daughter moving in with her father, the court ruled that it was the mother who would have been obligated to pay child support to the father, and that the father never violated his custody agreement because he paid the child support in the best way he could at the time, in pizza.

You Can Now Apparently Pay Your Child Support With Pizza In Italy – UPROXX https://t.co/o2Vi6Pap0Y

— Dana Archer (@DanaArcher) May 28, 2016

Now, the mother has been ordered to pay the father $330 in child support each month since the daughter is now living with her baker father. Do you think the spiteful mother will try to pay her child support in baked goods, since the judge ruled in the father’s favor?

[Image via Shutterstock]