CYPRESS : He’ll Go Back to Jail Over ‘Stupid’ Law

It looks like it’s going to be round two in the slammer for Joseph C. Codsi.

The Cypress man already has spent 26 days behind bars for defying court orders to reveal the whereabouts of his assets. But he says he’d rather be jailed again than pay the $17,000 in child support that he owes his ex-wife.

On Tuesday, Superior Court Judge William F. Rylaarsdam issued a warrant for Codsi’s arrest when he failed to appear for a hearing. Codsi had vowed Monday night that he would not show up, telling The Times: “I don’t take orders from a sacred whore.” He said he was referring to the judge.

Codsi, 56, said Tuesday that he knew his number was up.

“I know they’re coming to get me,” he said in a telephone interview from his home. “I’m not scared of them. I’m waiting for them. My bags are packed.”

He might have to wait a few days. Capt. Don Spears, spokesman for the county marshal’s office, said civil arrest warrants usually take a couple of days to process.

Family law experts say Codsi’s crusade is novel both for the color of his language and the length of time he has spent in jail. Few people stay behind bars so long for refusing to answer questions in a child support case.

In a series of hearings last fall, he steadfastly refused to detail his finances and unleashed a stream of insults at the judge. He was held in contempt of court and thrown into Orange County Jail.

But Codsi was released Nov. 12, after 26 days, when his ex-wife’s lawyer decided it was obvious Codsi wouldn’t cooperate no matter how much time he spent in jail. The woman’s attorneys located and seized $3,300 in a bank account under Codsi’s name. They hoped to track down more of his money.

But attorney Geraldine G. Sandor said Tuesday that the trail to Codsi’s assets went cold and his ex-wife, Ruth Hill of San Clemente, cannot afford to hire a private investigator. So Sandor went back to court to ask for Codsi’s arrest, hoping more time in jail might soften his outlook.

No such luck.

Codsi, who immigrated to the United States from his native Lebanon two decades ago, swore never to comply with American child support law.

“They are legalized mobsters, the laws here,” he said. “They are stupid, abusive and immoral. The law shouldn’t intrude into my life or interfere in family matters. I shouldn’t have to receive orders from (his ex-wife) or from the law on how I take care of my children.”

Codsi, a former real estate broker, said he supports his 12-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son “in the way I see fit: directly, independently of their mother. They can come to me for whatever they need.”

Codsi said the $3,300 was “the last penny I had,” and that he now lives on money borrowed from relatives in Lebanon. He does not work “because they seize everything I make,” Codsi said.

Meanwhile, he said, he is writing a book. The working title is, “The Sacrament of Divorce: A Field Study in the Castration of the Legal Mind.”

Sandor said Codsi’s defiance leaves Hill frustrated and with few options. Her problem illustrates the limits of enforcement when it comes to child support orders, Sandor said.

“This shows that if someone wants to thumb their nose at the system and they’re strong enough to do it, they can,” Sandor said.