A Georgia man with a federal warrant for his arrest was taken into custody after Indiana State Police found him on Tuesday.
The warrant charged that the man had fled the state of Georgia in order to avoid paying child support. He had been living in southeast Indiana for over four years prior to the arrest. The 44-year-old man apparently fled Georgia in November 2006, and had been living in southeast Indiana since that time.
Sources didn’t indicate the reasons the man failed to pay child support, so one can only speculate.
Child support enforcement is a real problem for many divorced or separated couples. In some cases of nonpayment, the noncustodial parent merely has trouble affording the payment. This can be for any number of reasons, such as failure to find or hold down a job, job hopping, or habitual unemployment.
In other cases, the noncustodial parent simply refuses to pay support, despite their ability to pay. In these cases, the nonpaying party may be getting away with not paying because garnishment may not possible, they are self employed and falsely reporting their income to make it smaller than it really is, or they are hiding their assets under other names.
In order to assist in child support enforcement, the state of Georgia maintains a list of Most Wanted Child Support Evaders. Noncustodial parents make the list if they (1) are behind on payments at least $5,000, (2) no payments have been made within the last six months, and (3) the Division of Child Support Services has exhausted all its resources.
Source: www.fox19.com, “Federal fugitive on the run since ’06 arrested in Dearborn Co.,” 23 Feb 2011.