The Mississippi Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of Chancery Judge Jennifer Schloegel’s ruling that a former federal agent and longtime Mississippi law enforcement officer “committed fraud” by “creating, procuring, and submitting” a fraudulent DNA test in a child support case to deny fathering his girlfriend’s child.
In October, the higher court dismissed the appeal of Schloegel’s January 2024 ruling that former Homeland Security Investigations supervisory agent and narcotics commander Benjamin Marcus Taylor filed.
In the dismissal order, the court notes that Taylor failed to file a legal brief explaining why the decision should be reversed.
In the initial paperwork, Taylor claimed his appeal was based on the spoliation of evidence, suggesting that his former girlfriend and mother of the child had intentionally destroyed, hid, altered, or withheld evidence in the legal proceeding.
In addition, he suggested the evidence didn’t support the ruling.
Judge Schloegel issued the judgment after a two-day trial in the case involving a child Taylor had with his longtime girlfriend, Branissa Stroud. Taylor, now divorced, was married when he fathered the child.