Mississippi Association of Professional Process Servers

JACKSON, Miss. — The Mississippi Supreme Court will review contempt of court citations filed by a judge against three people who allegedly lied about delivering subpoenas in child support cases.

In July of 2010, Jackson County Chancellor Neil Harris found Guy Jernigan, Thomas Corey McDonald and Edwin Cheshire in contempt of court for filing false affidavits and ordered them to pay $88,500 in sanctions and serve jail time until the money was paid.

In court documents, Harris has said Jernigan claimed he served a woman who was in jail and couldn’t receive a subpoena and another who had been dead for two years.

Jernigan and McDonald were process servers for First Fidelity Trust Services Inc., a subcontractor of YoungWilliams Child Support Services. Cheshire is identified in court documents as president of First Fidelity Trust.

All three appealed to Harris’ order to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

According to Harris’ order, Jernigan filed a sworn affidavit with the court clerk stating he served April Gray of Ocean Springs on May 6. But Gray was jailed at the Jackson County Adult Detention Center at the time and could not have received the document.

YoungWilliams is a Jackson company that had a $23 million with the Mississippi Department of Human Services to seek child support court orders.

The process servers claimed they delivered papers to people who were incarcerated and even to a woman who had been dead for two years, court records show.

Questions about the process servers prompted an investigation by MDHS.

The case is among dozens of appeals before the Supreme Court in its July-August term. The Supreme Court will not hear oral arguments in the case.

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2012/07/10/4053848/process-servers-case-before-miss.html#storylink=rss#storylink=cpy