ASHINGTON, Aug. 16 — Federal agents in 29 states have arrested dozens of fathers who owe millions of dollars of child support, in a nationwide sweep that officials describe as a significant expansion of the federal role.Posted on 08/19/2002 2:07:59 PM PDT by Don Joe
ASHINGTON, Aug. 16 — Federal agents in 29 states have arrested dozens of fathers who owe millions of dollars of child support, in a nationwide sweep that officials describe as a significant expansion of the federal role.
More notable than any one arrest, the officials say, is the message that the Bush administration is sending about its decision to pursue a more aggressive approach by using federal criminal prosecution against people who have repeatedly flouted state court orders.
Even though child support collections have increased in recent years, many parents still evade their obligations by moving from state to state and job to job. Surveys by the Census Bureau suggest that one-third of the parents entitled to child support under court orders or agreements are not receiving it.
In the last two weeks, federal agents, working with state and local law enforcement officers, have arrested 69 people on charges of not paying child support. Federal agents are hunting for 33 others named in indictments or criminal complaints. The defendants together owe more than $5 million, and the 69 already arrested account for $3.4 million of the total, the government said.
"This is just the beginning," said Matthew P. Kochanski, a criminal investigator at the Department of Health and Human Services. "You can expect to see many more regional and national efforts. We're ready to enforce this law in a coordinated way."
Federal officials said most of the defendants had not made payments in several years. Their individual arrears are $7,500 to $297,000.
"These arrests will have a ripple effect," said Sherri Z. Heller, commissioner of the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement. "We believe that other people who want to avoid this fate will come in and pay up."
All the defendants are fathers, though the government said that in a separate case, on Aug. 13 it arrested a woman who owed $86,000 for two daughters in Ohio, ages 11 and 12. The government said the woman was earning $100,000 a year as a doctor in the Northern Mariana Islands.
The crackdown, which included arrests in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, has bipartisan support. It grows out of a small pilot program that began in a few states in the Clinton administration and was expanded by Tommy G. Thompson, the current secretary of health and human services.
"These parents have a demonstrated ability to meet their financial responsibilities to their children, but have consistently refused to provide the support they owe," Mr. Thompson said.
Janet Rehnquist, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, who coordinated the arrests, said the defendants included some of "the nation's most-wanted deadbeat parents."
Among those taken into custody, the government said, were an Oklahoma sheet metal worker who has not made child support payments in 16 years and owes $297,000; a Tennessee engineering company employee who has not made a payment in nine years and owes $264,000; and an Illinois man who has not paid more than $101,000 over the last five years even though he earned as much as $1.1 million one year as a professional football player.
The football player, James E. Harris, a former defensive end for the Oakland Raiders and the St. Louis Rams, owed child support for a son living in Pennsylvania, the government said.
A criminal information filed against the Oklahoma man, James A. Circle, says he earned more than $39,000 a year and had been ordered to pay $350 a week for a child in New Jersey. The indictment of the Tennessee man, Stanley A. Gagne, says he owes child support payments for a son and a daughter in Vermont.
Under federal law, a person who willfully does not pay a child support obligation of more than $10,000 for a child living in another state may be fined $250,000 and imprisoned up to two years. In addition, it is a felony to cross state lines to evade child support obligations of more than $5,000.
Tens of thousands of parents, mostly fathers, are so poor that they cannot pay child support. But officials said the people arrested in the last two weeks had enough income and assets to meet their obligations.
"These are deadbeat dads, but they are not dead broke," said Ben St. John, a spokesman for the inspector general.
Over the last decade, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives have united to toughen the law on child support for welfare recipients and more affluent parents. A parent's duty to support a child, they agree, is more serious than ordinary commercial debts.
The federal government granted itself jurisdiction over interstate child support cases in 1992, but federal prosecutors initially showed little interest. A first offense was only a misdemeanor until 1998, when Congress rewrote the law. United States attorneys have sporadically filed cases since then, securing 143 convictions last year and 98 this year.
"The recent arrests represent a new avenue of enforcement. There hasn't been a nationwide coordinated effort like this before," said Mr. Kochanski, the federal investigator. "We asked the states for the worst of the worst, the most egregious cases, in which they could not enforce child support orders."
Reached at a restaurant that he runs in San Diego, one of the defendants, Fariborz M. Monajami, said he was "very surprised to be arrested after all these years." He spent four days in jail and was released on Aug. 9 after posting a $10,000 bond.
His indictment, returned in Federal District Court in Fort Worth, says Mr. Monajami made no child support payments from 1990 to 1997. He owes more than $76,000 under a child support order issued in 1990.
Mr. Monajami said he had canceled checks showing that, beginning in 1997, he had paid a total of $25,000 to his son and daughter while they were in college.
Another one of those arrested, Dr. George M. Lewis, a psychiatrist in California, acknowledged, "I have an arrearage," but said he did not know the amount. The government says he owes $64,976.
Dr. Lewis said federal and state officials had conspired against him.
"The government tried to entrap me in a crime and undermine my ability to earn a living," he said. "That's the reason I'm behind in child support."
Thanks for the condescending tripe in response to an obvious fast-scan of my posts.
You don't see how my not paying would have helped my children? BFD. I challenge you to show me how my PAYING "helped my children".
In fact, it is obvious that BY PAYING I actually HARMED my children. The money that I could have used to provide for their needs instead went to their mother to buy her "nice things".
Thanks to "child support", my children did without.
"If the mother of your children was so rotten, why didn't you sue for custody?"
You cocky know-it-all experts really turn my stomach.
Next time, before condescending to lecture your audience, perhaps you could trouble yourself to f'n READ what they WROTE?
If you had bothered to READ my words before REPLYING to them, you would know that after TEN YEARS of battle, I ended up with custody.
"There are many variations on child support stories, but the bottom line is, you played, you pay. And I don't care what your sob story is, pay for your child's support!"
I cannot think of an appropriate reply to that statement which would NOT get me kicked off Free Republic.
So I'll let your demonstrably florid imagination fill in the f*cking blanks.
Nonexistent.
As the bitc# in charge of imposing Michigan's Child Support Guidline put it when I asked that question (on a state level), there are no mechanisms to enforce anything with respect to the mother, "because we believe that mothers care for their children."
That blood-boiler says a lot. Among other things, the unspoken flip-side -- that fathers don't "care about their children" -- should be a wakeup call to any XY-enabled entity walking the face of the earth. At least walking upon that part of it that falls under the jurisdiction of any state using Michigan's policies as a model.
I do apologize for not reading all of your posts before responding to your one post to me. I certainly didn't do that to tick you off, so please don't assume so.
You've made way too many assumptions about me with just a few of my words. I'll try to correct that a bit.
If you noticed, I did acknowledge that custody cases are not always fair, so don't assume that I always lean toward the woman's side of this issue or any other issue.
You asked me to show you how your children benefitted from your child support payments. Since I can't supply first hand information I'd have to take a guess. You said it took you 10 years to gain custody of your children, right? Then I suppose for that 10 years your children were without a roof over their heads, food, medical care, school supplies, clothing, beds and bedding,...you get the picture. Or did you pay for all of their needs during this 10 years?
Now that probably ticked you off again even though it wasn't intended to tick you off but rather in hope you might see that if even a tiny amount of what you paid in child support helped to put a roof over their heads, food in their tummys or a bed to sleep in for even one night, then it was a help to your children. That's about the best you can hope for under your type of circumstances until you can change the situation as you eventually did.
I also doubt that non payment of you child support would have helped your custody case. Where would your kids be now if you were cooling your heels in jail for non payment? Probably not a pretty thought.
Does the mother pay you child support? I hope she does, as she should.
I'm glad your custody battle is over and that your children are in better hands. I applaud you for your endurance and determination. I do understand that our family law is a mess and needs to change. I hope you channel some of your anger towards helping to make that happen. Probably to your surprise, I do agree that family law has been unfair towards men for too long. But I stand by my opinion that if you owe child support then you should pay it, no matter the circumstance. The answer is to change the circumstance the legal way, as you did.
I hope I've made my points without raising your blood pressure again. Especially since I don't think our opinions are that far apart.
And I say to the MEN, you play, you pay!
Well, if play for pay is aok - then let me tell all the men here that there are some outstanding deals outside this country. We all have just been informed as to the true nature of marriage/relationships here in this country (so aptly put by GatorGirl), so what the hey - all were talking about is price now.
Central America is great this time of year. Not to mention the Ukraine, and (sigh) Brazil.
With everything going on (as described in this thread), you deserve a break today. See you in Costa Rica :^)
It sounds a lot like DJ's ex was providing just fine for the kids out of her own pocket, and that DJ's support payments were being used only for luxuries for the self-pitying ex.
If that's the case then your premise is blown out of the water.
And I say to women like you, go play with yourself.
And what do you say to the women? You play, the Men will pay!!!
Thas is happening - are you purposely blind to the female role in this fraud?
I know, it’s only the men at fault. Females are just good darling people now, right?
Bingo. By his "logic", the abysmal level of "care" she provided (I'm pressed for another term for it when stuff happens like her neighbors calling me to beg me to do something so the kids aren't playing outside in rags in the winter while she minces about like a fashion plate) -- was more than adequate.
However, by paying the ex her tribute -- NONE of which did a whit for my children -- I was forced to provide a much lower standard of living for them during the times they were with me.
All I can say is that it's pretty f'd up to see men -- let alone putatively "conservative" men -- buying into the truly degenerate pack of lies promulgated by the left wing filth that runs with the feminist vermin.
The fact that they buy into it with such gusto is further cause for discouragment.
As to the smarmy advice given in the other recent posts, I'll simply say that my kids are grown and on their own, and have been for quite a few years now. My ex built up a fairly (dis)respectable back-support owed to me (even at the infuriating token level of $25 a week), which I ultimately forgave (I had my lawyer draw up the papers to make it official), for the sake of MY blood pressure.
It was interesting seeing her refuse to pay $35 a week after TWO YEARS of paying NOTHING -- with ZERO back-support awarded for that two year "grace period". She flew up from Texas to plead poverty. She minced into the courtroom with perhaps $400-$500 worth of clothshorsery that might have been appropriate at a cocktail party (including 4" heels), to tell the court that she could not afford $35 a week.
The court, of course, would have none of that, no fools they.
So they lowered the amount to $25.
Which, she protested, would bankrupt her (from her -- at that time -- income of probably $75 grand a year).
The judge reared back and said, "Do you expect me to believe that if I ordered you to pay $25 a week it would drive you into bankruptcy?"
She replied "Yes."
But the judge, Brave Man that he was, stood his almighty ground, and awarded me the grand sum of $25 a week for my two daughters. (dat be in da aggragate; $12.50 per mouth)
And to make the already too-long story short, she refused to pay it. Phrases like, "I'm not going to pay him anything!" graced her lips.
Six odd months later, I was back in court. And that Brave Bold Judge ordered her to pay -- or else!
So, a month or so later, I received a token amount. Maybe $150 or so.
And then nothing.
Six months later, back in court. And again The Big Bold One ordered her to pay up -- or else!
But this time, she didn't.
She'd figured out the game. She figured out that when the payer is a She, the "pay him or else" means, "pay him or else don't pay him!"
So, I forgave the debt, and "moved on".
I will NEVER, however, forget the unspeakable horrors that were committed against my children, nor will I forget the foul scumbags in the Child Support Industry that empowered the abuse, and forced ME to finance it.
May they all rot in hell, and may every piss I take from now to Kingdom Come trickle down on them as they cry out for a drop of water.
And as I've said in other threads, my contempt for this foul system would be mitigated if I had any sense that my situation was unique -- or even "not that common". However, over the years since, I've encountered more men -- and children -- who have been ravaged by the "Child Support" Industry.
So listening to the fools who insist that I just don't get it... listing to that bulls#it is like being a concentration camp survivor having to endure some fool "historical revisionist" trying to patiently explain to me how hitler wasn't such a bad guy after all, since none of that "concentration camp" stuff really happened.
Try to bulls#it someone who doesn't know better. Try to bulls#it someone who hasn't BEEN THERE.
Have a nice day, y'all.
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