Walter Andre Sharpe was jailed repeatedly for refusing to pay child support that he didn't owe for a kid who wasn't his. But the mix-up is at least partly his own fault, Dauphin County officials claim as they try to kill a federal lawsuit Sharpe is pursuing against them.

Sharpe just didn’t try hard enough to correct the mistake, the county contends.

U.S. Middle District Judge John E. Jones III, who earlier refused to free Dauphin and Montgomery counties as defendants in Sharpe’s suit, will have to decide whether to buy that argument.

Sharpe’s lawyer, Spero Lappas, declined comment on Dauphin County’s latest legal maneuver. He said he’ll answer it in court.

The court battle over Sharpe's bureaucratic nightmare has been going on for three years. The Philadelphia-area man sued after county officials finally conceded they had the wrong guy.

One thing Sharpe seeks is to recover thousands of dollars in child support he wrongly had to pay. He claims officials in both counties tampered with his records to make it appear he was obligated for $12,000 in support.

According to court filings, Sharpe’s problems with Dauphin County Domestic Relations began in 2001. At the time, Sharpe also was paying support, legitimately, in a Montgomery County case.

Sharpe’s first inkling of the Dauphin County case came when a notice was mailed to his Bensalem home demanding that he appear for a court hearing in Harrisburg. Sharpe signed for the certified letter, then ignored it, figuring it was sent to him in error.

The matter didn’t go away, though, and despite his protests Sharpe was jailed in Dauphin County four times on contempt of court charges. The erroneous paternity filing wasn’t corrected until 2007. Sharpe filed suit in May 2009 after District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr. announced that no criminal charges would be filed over the mistake.

Sharpe claims the paternity error was triggered because Montgomery County domestic relations officials incorrectly changed his name in a computer filing system. Dauphin County officials also improperly altered records, then fought his attempts to prove he wasn’t the father, he contends. He claims those alleged acts violated his constitutional rights.

In seeking dismissal of the case, Dauphin County officials are arguing that Sharpe should have to bear some blame for not trying harder to rectify the error. They claim that even though his paternity designation was wrong, it initially appeared to be correct based on an “abundance of information."

Sharpe disregarded numerous mailings and orders to appear in court before challenging the paternity finding, the county contends. “Rather than choose to take formal legal action, or any action, for that matter, (Sharpe) admits he simply hoped the matter would resolve itself and essentially go away, while notices from the court made it clear this was not happening,” the county’s court filing states. “Sharpe simply failed to even contact Dauphin County domestic relations until long after paternity had been established by default.”

Domestic relations staffers repeatedly advised him on how to challenge the paternity ruling, but Sharpe ignored that advice, the county officials contend. They also deny Sharpe’s claims that county workers altered his records to make it seem that he owed the support.

Montgomery County officials, who are seeking dismissal from the suit as well, claim they had only peripheral involvement in Sharpe’s dispute with Dauphin County. They, too, insist the problem was exacerbated by Sharpe’s alleged inaction after he began receiving erroneous court summonses. Sharpe “consistently slept on his rights to participate in the proceedings,” they contend.

“It is unfortunate that Mr. Sharpe had to spend even one day in jail,” Montgomery County officials wrote in a court filing. “However, he could have avoided incarceration by simply responding to the several notices or appeared for the ... hearings before the court.

“He could have easily requested a paternity test and laid the matter to rest in its early stages,” they added.