Raised as a child of a
single mother, I pursued becoming a jet pilot, and astronaut, until a 25
degree, right apex curvature was discovered in my spine. The subtle spinal
curvature had gone unnoticed throughout my life, including through three (3)
military physicals, until my final flight training physical while I was
commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. From that point
forward, I thought that I was going to be an aerospace engineer who retired
at
NASA. After a technology
career, in honor of my mother’s death, I created a technology and servicing
company to assist parents with child support dilemmas. Little did I
know what the universe had planed for me.
The Universe’s Mission And Preparation To Undertake The Initiative
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Kai Patterson & His Mother |
Oprah
Winfrey recently said, “GOD can dream a
bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself;” (Oprah's Interview), and there could
never be truer circumstances than Project
Child Support and me. Never receiving child support as a child cultivated
me to have an empathy gap for single parents owed arrears. My mother stayed in Newark, NJ in low-income
housing and took the bus for years so she could develop her credit, because she
felt that she couldn’t rely on the child support from my father. My paternal grandparents
supplemented as much as they could to try and bridge the financial gap. Not having my biological father in my life,
but having a great paternal grandfather enabled me to see what it means to be a
great father, even though I have no children of my own. Attending college also enabled me to see
African American students brought to campus by both of their parents, witnessing the love by fathers, unlike my experience with my father. Understanding that I grew up in a situation
that wasn’t normal in my era (before the epidemic of single parenting) undoubtedly provided the motivation and drive to help parents with child
support issues. This is why I admire Oprah Winfrey's wisdom.
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Kai Patterson's Childhood Apartment Complex |
Growing
up as a child of a single parent enabled me to understand how important my
mother’s image was to her, and how important it is to depict the parents in the most
positive light possible, especially custodial parents who must continue raising
their children after their episode airs.
Unlike many reality series that depict adults in the most demeaning
manner possible to gain notoriety, I refused to capitulate to that media
thirst, which enabled me to redefine our series as a “Docu-Drama,” instead of a
reality series. This turned out to be a
great decision when I attempted to acquire the insurance policies for the
series, which include a general liability, production liability, and errors
& omissions insurances, in addition to the production company having to
acquire production liability, and production completion bond insurances. People fighting, flipping each other over
tables, and the resulting lawsuits have made insurance companies afraid to insure reality
series productions. Without errors &
omission insurance, networks will not allow your show to air on stations. Many reality shows and stars have pissed in
the well for independent producers trying to launch reality series.
Acquiring The Discipline, Skills And Contacts
Serving
as a Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps enabled me to acquire the
discipline and tenacity to continue pursing the goal of launching the series,
even with all of the adversities I encountered.
After my honorable discharge from the United State Marine Corps and
working on the development team for GPS at ITT DCD/Avionics, I became a
computer consultant at AT&T, where I worked as a 1099. I became familiar with being paid as an
independent contractor, which is how many noncustodial parents hide their
income (AT&T
Endorsement). Studying technology
enabled me to undertake creating a system to help find noncustodial parents on
the run, which led to me to create Bounty
Alert, Project Child Support and
the television series. Prior to this
venture, I created technology to assist in the recovery of missing children
with a venture I initially called Youth
Alert, then AMBER Alert Safety,
and ultimately AMBER Ready. The AMBER
Ready venture enabled me to meet the production and distribution company
that provided me with my television deal (Television Deal). The
introduction came from a contact at one of the investment banks that funded my
AMBER Ready deal. They produced the AMBER Ready
Commercial after two other production companies produced
terrible commercials. The two terrible
commercials by two other production companies enabled me to realize that
everyone with a video camera can’t produce a quality production.
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Kai Patterson's ABC News Interview |
My
first television interview was conducted by NBC, when I invented virtual tours
in a full multiple listing system and sold it to Prudential Real Estate in 1995
(NBC Interview), while waiting for
the NFL to approve the game analysis system I created for them. My AMBER Ready project also prepared me for
television in a way that I could never imagine, when I went on tour and began
speaking on television networks about the initiative. When it was called Youth Alert in 2003, I was a novice in front of the camera (WB11 Interview). Between 2004 and
2006, I linked-up with a group that hosted AMBER Alert events on weekends
throughout the country, which were covered by local news stations and required
that I give interviews on many occasions.
By 2009, when FOX News in Boston profiled me on their morning show, it
was a more polished interview and I was comfortable being on camera. It felt natural, even though it was the first
time I was filmed in a huge television studio (FOX Interview). After I left AMBER Ready and started the Custodial Support Foundation as a
nonprofit, I obtained a television series talk show deal from Cablevision, located in
New Jersey. Amateur producers produced the show, but the ten
(10)
episodes enabled me to determine the topics, write the show, acquire the guest
and host it. The show was called the Custodial Support Forum, and was the
first dedicated talk show series to discuss solutions to child support issues for both custodial and noncustodial
parents (Custodial Support Forum).
How Professional Athletes And Celebrities Don’t Pay Child Support
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Stephen A Jordan (A.K.A Stevie J) |
Growing
up with a father who was an entertainer, produced shows in Europe, and was paid
as an independent contractor, enabled me to understand how celebrities make
themselves “un-garnishable” by the Office of Child Support Enforcement. Many actors, singers, dancers and producers
form their own companies, and contract out their services to avoid being
garnished, since it’s almost impossible to garnish contractor payments. Notice that I used the phrase “almost
impossible to garnish,” because the series will divulge the steps custodial
parents need to take to enforce child support when noncustodial parents are
being paid as independent contractors.
Since sports athletes receive medical benefits and are treated as
employees of their teams under the IRS Rule 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform, they should be
easily garnished. So, how do so many end up owing child support? Acquiring the Steven A. Jordan (A.K.A. Stevie J) case enabled me to prove that I could do what is
necessary to locate the assets of high profile celebrities and bring them to
justice if they refused to pay (Stevie J’s Federal Guilty Plea).
Creating
Game Prep for the NFL to manage the
Player Disciplines for Gene Washington, who was the former Director of Football Development and Paul Tagliabue, who was the former Commissioner, enabled me to immediately
recognize how NFL Players like Terrell Owens accumulated his arrears when I
obtained the case from one of the custodial parent of his child. It took April 16, 1993 from the day I wrote my
first line of code to April 16, 1996 to receive the letter from the NFL that
approved my contract to provide Game Prep
as an NFL System (NFL Purchase), which was several years before Microsoft paid
the NFL $400,000 to provide the system I was paid by the NFL to provide (Microsoft Deal). Ironically,
when I obtained the Terrell Owens cases, I was able immediately recognize
how it took place. The services that I provided, enable me the custodial parent to collect on this account. The series will teach viewers the
tricks and schemes used by many professional athletes to not pay child support,
even if they are paid as employees whose salaries should be garnished, but are not.
Learning How
To Raise Capital Through Prior Ventures
Many television
series are produced with the intent of taking it to a network, and having the
network fund the series, which enables them to own it, cast it, control what’s
shown, cancel it, replace anyone associated with the series, and pay a small
fraction of the revenue generated by the series. After experiencing adversities were some people were not sincere throughout my life,
and in many business ventures, putting this series in the hands of someone who
may not have an appreciation for my pigmentation is too risky. Furthermore, since we provide legal services
for parents, we need to dictate what can be shown to ensure that we maintain
attorney/client privileges with our clients.
Having raised over $18 million for the AMBER Ready project, where news stories covered $14 million ($12 Million and 2 Million), I learned the most important factor in raising
money is obtaining a contract that commits to the earnings, and having costs
that are less than the earnings to generate profits.
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Sony PXW-Z100 4K XDCAM Camera |
Unlike
most productions that start out with a treatment, a pilot, a production deal,
and then a distribution deal to have the show air on a network, I acquired the
production and distribution deal before ever producing a frame of
footage was produced. I was able to do this, because the production company that
produced the AMBER Ready commercial
was also an independent distribution company. That enabled me to enter
into a production and distribution deal all rolled into one deal. Most
productions consist of separate production and distribution companies where
neither will guarantee the work of the other, thus requiring a trailer, sizzle
real or pilot to be produced. That requires investment capital to be
provided, which is risky before a distribution deal is acquired.
Television networks and production studios do not have to produce pilots for the
series they produce, fund, own and air, because they have the reputation of
producing quality shows. A production and distribution company with a
reputation of producing quality shows like studios and networks can have media
buyers commit the advertisers just like television networks and major
studios. Since “once upon a time” our production and distribution company
produced shows for networks, they developed the reputation to obtain a
distribution deal without a single frame of footage. The deal requires
the series be filmed in 4K, to also ensure the video quality is excellent.
Raising The
Capital To Produce An Independent Series
Raising the money for
AMBER Ready, and my NFL venture
taught me how to produce business plans, executive summary, projections, and
how to write contracts. When AMBER Ready
launched a back to school event on Time Square, I met several entertainment
attorneys associated with music and television.
Since many music artists are acquiring television deals through 360 deals, I was able to not only contact the
entertainment attorneys of the artists that we used for the Time Square event,
but entertainment attorneys that we didn’t use.
Fortunately, I was able to acquire an entertainment attorney to put
together an iron clad contract that enabled the Project Child Support series to be distributed as a “Time Buy” to enable the series to be independently
distributed via a network as a default, with the ability of having the series
licensed by a network. My production and
distribution company then acquired a deal with one of the largest independent
distribution companies to distribute the series domestically and
internationally.
Before
attempting to raise the funds for the series development, I acquired an invoice
from the production and distribution company that guaranteed the funds for the
series as each episode is released.
Rather than selling independent investors on funding the series, where
they put their investment at a total risk of me earning back their funds, I
decided to use a commercial bank to fund development of the series and use
their investment as collateral. The
collateral is never be touched while generating interest for the investor. I acquired a series of insurance policies to protect the deal, collateral provider and bank should anything go wrong. Since the production and distribution
company was bondable, they acquired a bond for the production budget that
ensured the series is produced, and distributed to the networks via the
domestic and international independent distribution company. I obtained the error & omission insurance
policy to meet the requirements of each network. I also acquired a general liability policy
for the entire amount of the loan, including the costs the fees to guarantee
the loan, which will be paid at the closing of the loan, instead of being paid at the repayment of the loan. Had I not previously raised $18 million for my
prior AMBER Ready project, whereby
$14 million is documented in news articles, I may not have been taken seriously
when I requested what I needed in each deal that’s associated with the television
series to raise the funds for the series. Once funded, I launched AMBER Ready at the U.S. Capitol Building, where I spoke before Congress. The launch enabled me to cut my teeth at making presentations to politicians after holding a press conference that morning at the National Press Club with the Assistant U.S. Attorney Of New York.
Executing All Documents At Closing To Protect All Parties
To
prevent the concerns of a chicken and egg scenario that require elements of deals to be in
place before other elements can be provided, all parties agreed to an escrow
attorney approved by the bank to make all of the payments to the respective
parties at the closing of the funding. The terms of the agreements
required the guarantors, bonding company and insurance companies to be paid
their full premiums by the escrow attorney at the closing of the loan to ensure
no policies would lapse for nonpayment over the course of the loan. A complete budget for the series, funding,
escrow fees, and closing costs was required to be approved by the production
company, bank, guarantor, bonding company, and all of the insurance companies. To ensure the production would not exceed the
production budget, the production and distribution company agreed to cap their
costs and incur any losses associated with any cost overruns in their
agreement. The bonding company also
required a five percent (5%) budget excess cushion be placed in their escrow
account, which will be returned at the completion and distribution of the seasons
being funded and produced.
Conclusion
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Kai Patterson & His Father |
I had a biological
father who initially denied paternity, and used his entertainment career’s independent contractor payment
method to prevent paying child support. When I was a child and in college, never in an million years, would I have ever believed that I would be providing services to assist children who were owed child support like me. Having been a technical consultant, I coincidently learned how my
father’s payment method works. Subsequently forming a company that created the technology for the NFL’s discipline’s system that
required me to learn how their payroll system worked to implement player fines,
I obtained inside knowledge to recognize how some professional atheletes avoid child support
garnishments. After rasining over $18 million in my previous company that created technology to
find missing children, I subsequently
formed Project Child Support where I get the Terrell Owens’ case
to provide the investigative services for the mother of his child. The case led to a court order being issued in my client's favor. Finally,
I obtained the nation’s largest child support felony evasion case of the music
producer Stevie J, where I used what I learned from being an independent
contractor to find his revenue sources. The U.S. Government prosecuted him, where he plead guilty, and is required to pay $1.3 million in unpaid child support to our client.
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Kai Patterson's Secret Mentor |
The chances of one individual coincidently taking my career
path, forming this company, obtaining the cases that I obtained, and
continue to obtain new high profile cases are less than winning the lottery. This is why I have so much confidence in the Project Child Support Television Series,
and truly believe Oprah’s statement to "let the universe guide you" requires persistence once you understand your life's mission. In that same Oprah Winfrey interview that I watched, she said “you can’t fight problems head on; you have to transcend it.” That is what Project Child Support, and it’s television series will do. She also talked about “brining out the best in people,” which is what I’ve seen first hand. The countless people who’ve gotten behind this initiative to enable it to come to fruition can’t be measured.
(c) Copyright 2018 by Project Child Support
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PARENTS MAY CONTACT
Project Child Support at (855) 851-HELP or (855) 851-4357