Child Support Chase Hits Jackpot--$77,600

A San Pedro mother of three grown children received a check Friday for $77,600 in unpaid child support, believed to be one of the biggest collections of its kind in the country.

Sharon Kirk, 48, had been battling for 16 years to get the court-ordered payments of $400 a month from her former husband, William Kirk Jr., whom she divorced in 1970.

According to authorities, he left California for about eight years and attempts by the district attorneys’ offices in Los Angeles and Orange counties to locate him to collect the money were unsuccessful.

When he returned to California in 1981, it was learned that his income from his computer consultant’s job, estimated to be about $10,000 a month, was being funneled into a Delaware corporation in an attempt to avoid paying child support, Sharon Kirk said.

“I thought I’d never see a penny,” she said.

However, her lawyers, associated with the Center for Enforcement of Family Support in Los Angeles, began a chase in 1983 that eventually led to the payment of the check Friday.

Attorney Dennis A. Cohen said a search of county records showed that William Kirk, who currently lives in Orange County, owned three homes there. Armed with the original $400-a-month child support order, a Superior Court judge in Orange County approved the placing of liens against the three residences, Cohen said.

In addition, a lawsuit was filed against the Delaware corporation, contending that it was working in concert with the former husband to defraud his creditors, namely Sharon Kirk.

Faced with lengthy court proceedings over the related cases, Cohen said William Kirk--who acknowledged that he did not meet his financial obligations to his three children--agreed to sell one of the homes in order to pay.

“We just made it very difficult for him and he decided to pay up,” Cohen said.

Cohen said the check was one of the largest collections of unpaid child support in the United States.