This memorandum is not a simple dispute over child support; it is an indictment of profound and unconscionable systemic failure. The following sections present irrefutable evidence, drawn from the state's own records and the official statements of its agents, demonstrating that a decade of devastating enforcement actions was predicated on a non-existent court order, executed through an illegal interstate scheme, and characterized by malicious conduct that violated the Petitioner's fundamental constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

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1. The Foundational Defect: No Lawful Child Support Order Existed

At the very heart of this decade-long ordeal is a fatal, structural flaw: the absence of a lawful, enforceable child support order. A critical legal distinction exists between a divorce decree that merely references a private agreement and a formal, enforceable court order that specifies a monetary obligation signed by a judicial officer. Without such a valid order, any subsequent enforcement action by a state agency is an act of administrative overreach, legally void from its inception.

1. The "Smoking Gun": The Court's 2015 Admission

The most compelling evidence of this foundational defect comes from the Court's own contemporaneous record. The court’s file proves two facts simultaneously: (1) no specific monetary order was ever entered, and (2) the court knew it could not enter one, making the state's subsequent enforcement of a specific dollar amount an act of administrative defiance against a known judicial limitation. The official Minute Order from June 10, 2015, the day after the dissolution hearing, contains an unambiguous admission:

This entry is the Court’s own statement of fact. It proves that a legally essential component for a valid child support order was missing, and as a result, no such order was or could have been entered. This is not an interpretation; it is a direct statement from the official case record that renders all subsequent enforcement actions illegitimate.

1. A Decree is Not an Order: The Legal Fiction of Enforcement

The state agencies proceeded for years under the fiction that the June 10, 2015 "Decree of Dissolution of Marriage" was their authority to collect. This was a legal impossibility. The decree only incorporated private agreements and contained no specific, court-ordered dollar amount. Further proving the foundation was not just absent, but chaotic, the Court’s own Minute Order from the hearing on June 9, 2015, listed child support as "1,028/mo," while the private Parenting Plan listed it as "1,128." Enforcing a specific monetary debt based on these contradictory and unratified documents is the legal equivalent of a bank attempting to collect a $1,128 monthly mortgage payment based on a deed that only says, "A loan agreement exists." Without a specific, judicially ratified monetary judgment, there is nothing to enforce.

1. The "Phantom" Order of 2022: Falsification of the Court Record

The state’s awareness of this fatal flaw is evidenced by a "phantom" docket entry made seven years later. On June 2, 2022, the case register shows an entry for a "Child Support Order 1st – N/A." The "N/A" designation—coupled with the absence of an associated document, judge, motion, or filing party—proves this was an administratively inserted record, not a lawful judicial order. This entry represents a falsification of the court record and an ultra vires act (an act beyond legal authority), constituting a transparent attempt to retroactively legitimize a void enforcement sequence in violation of C.R.S. §14-10-115(3)(a).

This foundational absence of a valid order enabled a complete collapse of interstate legal procedure.

2. Jurisdictional Collapse: The Unlawful Interstate Enforcement Scheme

The agencies' actions were not just chaotic but illegal per se under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), constituting a conspiracy to deprive the Petitioner of due process. UIFSA was enacted by every state to prevent the exact kind of jurisdictional chaos that defines this case, establishing two core principles: the "one-order" rule, meaning only one state’s order is controlling, and "Continuing, Exclusive Jurisdiction" (CEJ), granting the issuing state sole authority to modify it. Because the Petitioner, Gerald Hershfeldt, has always resided in Colorado, Colorado retained CEJ. Any independent enforcement or modification attempt by South Dakota was illegal.

1. The "Handshake" Agreement: A Conspiracy to Bypass Federal Law

Instead of adhering to UIFSA, the child support agencies of Colorado and South Dakota operated an informal, extra-legal enforcement partnership. Their own

written communications reveal a stunning conspiracy to bypass federal law, creating a system of mutual deniability.

Evidence of an Unlawful Interstate Scheme

Carleen Johnston (CO)

Official/State Direct Admission (from email records)