MOBILE, Ala. -- A federal judge in Mobile last week upheld a decision to hold a Georgia woman personally liable for seeking child support payments from former pro basketball player Jason Caffey after he had filed for bankruptcy protection.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Margaret A. Mahoney ordered Karen Russell to pay Caffey $57,470.50, after determining that an arrest warrant issued against the former Davidson High School standout violated rules prohibiting creditors from seeking debt collection during bankruptcy proceedings.

Russell's attorney, Penny Douglas Furr, said her client will appeal the case to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"We didn't expect anything different until we get to the 11th Circuit," she said.

Caffey, who starred at the University of Alabama before playing seven years in the NBA, drew national headlines for fathering 10 children by eight different women. Many of those women -- including Russell -- have sued for child support, which prompted him to file for Chapter 11 protection in August 2007.

Russell had sought Caffey's arrest as part of her child support case in May 2007. In July of that year -- before Caffey filed the bankruptcy petition in Mobile -- a judge in Tuscaloosa County held a hearing on the matter and found Caffey in contempt. But he did not sign the contempt order until Aug. 8, 2007, five days after Caffey filed for bankruptcy.

Mobile County sheriff's deputies, executing the arrest warrant, took Caffey into custody in September 2007, as he was leaving an appearance in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Caffey negotiated his release by paying $80,000 to Russell and her attorneys. He later asked Mahoney for sanctions against Russell. The judge sided with Caffey, ruling that Russell should have put a stop to the child support case once the bankruptcy had been filed.

Granade agreed with Mahoney.

"Once Russell had notice of the bankruptcy filing, she was obligated to discontinue the proceeding until either a relief from the stay ... was issued or the bankruptcy proceeding was dismissed," Granade wrote.

Mahoney ultimately dismissed the bankruptcy petition after Caffey's attorney and the bankruptcy administrator said Caffey could not come up with a workable plan to reorganize his debts. That freed the mothers to return to court. One of them, LoRunda Brown, persuaded a judge in Georgia to issue a warrant for Caffey's arrest. If he sets foot in the state, he could be arrested.

Meanwhile, Furr said, Caffey's child support debt to Russell now exceeds $100,000 and continues to grow.



Man pleads to enticement

A Mississippi man pleaded guilty last week to trying to lure a teenager girl for sex and driving to Mobile to meet her.

Kenneth Parnell, of Lucedale, admitted that he thought he was communicating with a 13-year-old girl he had met on the Internet in August of last year. After exchanging instant messages for three days, he made arrangements to meet her for sex in Mobile.

But the teenager actually was an undercover Mobile police officer, and Parnell was arrested.

Transcripts of their conversations in an online chat room show that Parnell asked the officer to meet him that weekend and told her the "kind of fun" he wanted to have was sex. Three minutes later, according to a written plea agreement, he asked her again how old she was.

Parnell told her that he did not like to use condoms. He also instructed her to ask her grandmother for $20, which would cover his gas costs.

On Aug. 23, 2008, after talking to the undercover officer on the telephone, Parnell drove to a Mobile coffee shop. After initially telling police that he had come to Mobile to look for a job, he confessed, according to the plea agreement.

Judge dismisses old indictment



Acting at the behest of prosecutors, a federal judge in Mobile dismissed a three-year-old indictment against a man whom the Baldwin County Corrections Center accidentally released in 2006.

Border patrol agents arrested Jose Armando Banuelos-Cervantes in August 2006 at the Greyhound bus station in Mobile and charged him with illegally re-entering the country after having been deported. The Mexican man was taken to the jail in Bay Minette, which houses some federal prisoners.

Three days later, however, jailers let Banuelos-Cervantes go. A representative from the U.S. Marshals Service explained at the time that the jail thought it was releasing Jose Barrios, a Foley man whose family had made bail on his charge of driving under the influence.

Chief U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade's order dismissing the indictment gives prosecutors the option of reinstating the charges at a later date.

Ken Fully, the resident agent in charge of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Mobile, said the move is a way to clear the books of an old case and free his agents to focus on more pressing matters.