To remind not-so-regular visitors here: a Jumbo is a special Ethics Alarms award for conduct that emulates the gag from the Broadway musical and film “Jumbo,” in which Jimmy Durante, as a circus clown trying to steal an elephant, is caught red-handed by a sheriff, and asked, “Where are you going with that elephant?” “Elephant?  What elephant?,” Jimmy replied.

Carl Knochelmann Jr is candidate for Kenton County Family Court Judge court judge in Kentucky. He also owes $2,886.54 in unpaid child support to the mother of his teenage son. He has been delinquent before: at various times a court has ordered him to pay overdue child support, including $9,632 in 2003. The current $2,886 amount dates back to 2008.

His opponent, seven-year incumbent Kenton County Family Court Judge Chris Mehling, said the back child support shows Knochelmann is unfit for a judgeship responsible for enforcing child support payments, among other things.

Ya think? Although I would imagine that he will wrap up the deadbeat dad vote.

Knochelmann’s attorney, speaking on behalf of his client, who was probably busy evading the mother of his child, said this shouldn’t cast a shadow over Knochelmann as a father or judicial candidate, explaining, “He’s very active in his son’s life. That’s the bigger picture.”

No, the biggest picture is the one of that elephant: the unpaid child support by a man who presumes to be qualified to judge others similarly delinquent.

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Pointer: ABA Journal

Source: Cincinnati.com