23 Arrested for Failing to Pay Child Support

Twenty-three men who failed to make child-support payments were arrested Saturday in a pre-Father’s Day sweep, Ventura County authorities said.

In what has become an annual event, investigators from the Ventura County district attorney’s office fanned out with warrants for 137 arrests, said Stan Trom, director of the district attorney’s child support division. All but two of the warrants were for delinquent fathers, Trom said.

Nine other people called the district attorney’s office by 4 p.m. when they found the investigators’ business cards after returning home, Trom said. Officials scheduled appointments for them to respond to the warrants voluntarily.

Authorities were especially pleased to arrest a 35-year-old Oxnard man who owes $44,000 to children he fathered in two families, Trom said. Most of those arrested owed from $6,000 to $7,000 in back support, he said.

The suspects will be charged with misdemeanors--either failing to support children or contempt of court for not complying with a court-ordered divorce settlement that provides for child-support payments.

The men were taken to the Ventura County Jail, where bail was set for most of them at $5,000. All those sought have been delinquent in child-support payments for at least three months, Trom said.

“We send them letters, we call them, we attempt to get wage assignments. . . . We attempt to get the money any other way we can,” Trom said.

Trom said the district attorney’s office will probably conduct its sweep on a different day next year to catch people by surprise.