U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America	Frequent Questions Search

Font Size     Print     Download Reader

This is an archive page. The links are no longer being updated.

The arrests were made without incident at various locations in 25 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico by agents from the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), U.S. Marshals Service, and state and local police. All of the defendants are either under federal indictment or the subjects of criminal complaints for willful failure to pay court-ordered child support and face maximum sentences of up to two years imprisonment plus full restitution of their overdue obligations. Authorities are actively pursuing 41 other defaulters for whom arrests warrants or summonses were issued as part of the enforcement action.

"These parents have a demonstrated ability to meet their financial responsibilities to their children, but they have consistently refused to provide the support they owe," Secretary Thompson said. "Our goal is to help ensure that their children receive the financial support that they need and deserve."

The 102 defaulters collectively owe more than $5 million in child support, and many of them had fled across state lines and switched jobs multiple times to avoid making payments. Their individual arrears range from $7,500 to $297,000, and all of them are at least a year late in their payments. Most have not made a single payment in several years.

"No one should abandon their parental responsibilities, and my office will bring the full weight of the law against those who do," Inspector General Janet Rehnquist said. "Since federal authorities assumed jurisdiction over interstate cases, fleeing across state lines is no longer an effective escape route for those intent on avoiding child support payments. As these arrests indicate, the increased scrutiny and cooperation of the federal, state and local agencies has made that strategy a risky proposition with serious consequences. "

HHS administers the Child Support Enforcement program through the department's Administration for Children and Families (ACF). ACF provides policy guidance and technical assistance to states to help ensure that child support is provided. It also operates a locator service and a new hire reporting system to help find parents who should be providing support. In addition, it provides funds to states to promote access and visitation programs to increase non-custodial parents' involvement in their children's lives.

"We provide extensive services to ensure that parents support their children financially, as well as maintaining a healthy involvement in their lives which can be just as important to the child," Secretary Thompson said. "But for the most flagrant cases of non-support, we must not hesitate to use the full force of the law on children's behalf."

Among those taken into custody were an Oklahoma sheet metal worker who has not made a child support payments in 16 years and now owes $297,000, a Tennessee engineering company employee who has not made a payment in nine years and is $264,000 in arrears, and a Florida pharmacist who owes $63,000. A former professional football player with past earnings in excess of $1.5 million also was apprehended. Now the owner of a housing development corporation in Missouri, he owes $103,000 and has not made a payment in more than two-and-a-half years. Others arrested include a Michigan bus company manager who owes $42,000 and whose ex-spouse is disabled and qualifies for welfare, and a $68,000-a-year Texas car salesman who has crossed state lines and quit several jobs to avoid garnishment of his wages to satisfy a $51,000 child support debt.

Secretary Thompson said that the defendants were selected for enforcement action because they were among the most egregious offenders out of the cases referred by state child support agencies to federal authorities for investigation and prosecution. He further noted that emphasis was placed on pursuing delinquent parents who lived in a state other than that of their dependent offspring, had a demonstrated financial ability to make the court-ordered payments, and intentionally refused to make the payments. Federal authorities have had jurisdiction over interstate child support cases since 1992. Under Federal law it is a felony offense to cross state lines to evade a child support obligation if the obligation has remained unpaid for longer than one year or is greater than $5,000; or to willfully fail to pay a child support obligation for a child living in another state if the obligation has remained unpaid for a period longer than two years or is greater than $10,000.

The enforcement action was undertaken as part of "Project Save Our Children" (PSOC), a national initiative implemented in 1998 by the HHS Office of Inspector General and the HHS Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) to enforce compliance in the most egregious non-support cases. Introduced as a three-state (Ohio, Michigan and Illinois) pilot program based in Columbus, Ohio, PSOC is now national in scope with 10 multiagency, multijurisdictional task forces serving all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Besides Columbus, task forces are based in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Denver, New York, Olympia, Sacramento, and Topeka. Besides OIG and OCSE, task force participants include the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorneys' Offices, U.S. Marshals Service, state and local law enforcement and child support agencies.

Since the inception of PSOC, the task forces have received and reviewed over 4,600 potential criminal non-support cases referred by state and county child support agencies. To date, they have resulted in 273 federal arrests and 173 criminal convictions, with nearly $8 million in restitution ordered. An additional 315 arrests have been made on the state level, resulting in 277 criminal convictions or civil adjudications and $10.7 million in court-ordered restitution.

A fact sheet on HHS' Child Support Enforcement efforts is available on the web at www.hhs.gov/news/press/2002pres/cse.html.

###

HHS Home | Questions? | Contacting HHS | Accessibility | Privacy Policy | FOIA | Disclaimers | The White House | USA.gov | Helping America's Youth

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201