LAW ENFORCEMENT : Reno Stepping Up Pursuit of Child-Support Delinquents

Even her severest critics agree on this: More than any other U.S. attorney general in history, Janet Reno has gone to bat for children.

Under a recent Reno directive, the Justice Department is stepping up the pursuit and punishment of deadbeat parents who fail to make court-ordered child-support payments after moving across state lines. The move is intended to put sharp teeth into a 1992 law that made the practice a federal crime for the first time.

Reno, the first woman to serve as attorney general, hopes the accelerated enforcement will have a genuine impact on a national problem of staggering proportions. More than half of all court-ordered child support currently goes unpaid, and the accumulated IOUs total an estimated $34 billion.

Under the 1992 law, first-time violators face a possible misdemeanor conviction, up to six months in jail and a $5,000 fine. Repeat offenders face a possible felony conviction, up to two years in prison and a $350,000 fine.

Reno said charges have been filed this month in 28 cases involving nearly $1 million in overdue payments by parents in 13 states. That is nearly twice the number of cases in which federal charges were filed in the preceding 12 months.

The new cases include one in California against Mark Pyeatt, an electrician who is believed to have moved to Florida. Pyeatt allegedly has failed for five years to make court-ordered payments to a child living in Inyo County and owes more than $30,000 in back child support. A state warrant was issued for his arrest in 1990.

Besides those 28 cases, the Department of Health and Human Services has referred to federal prosecutors another 25 for consideration, and more than 200 remain under active review. The latter group includes 14 California cases.

The Child Support Recovery Act of 1992 made it a federal offense to willfully fail to pay support for a child living in another state. To qualify as a federal case, the unpaid support must be greater than $5,000 or outstanding for more than a year, and a violator must have the proven ability to pay.

Primary responsibility for enforcing court-ordered child support remains with state and local authorities. But their powers are stretched, Reno said, when parents move to another state and “simply thumb their nose at the court and at their children.”

The 94 U.S. attorneys will prosecute cases in which authorities already have pursued all reasonably available remedies. They will target those cases in which a parent flees after being served with court papers, engages in deception to avoid paying, fails to pay after being held in contempt, or has other federal charges pending against him or her.

Reno’s interest in children and their treatment under the nation’s criminal and civil justice policies is not the whole story behind the federal crackdown.

The Assn. for Children for Enforcement of Support, which claims to be the largest child-support organization in the country, turned to members of Congress after becoming frustrated with enforcement of the 1992 law by federal prosecutors. Last summer, the association complained to Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), who is expected to head the House Judiciary Committee in the new Republican-controlled Congress, and Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, who switched to the Republican Party after the November election.

A Shelby-sponsored amendment to the Justice Department’s appropriations bill stated the Senate’s intent to see the 1992 law enforced.

But Justice Department officials deny that the association’s lobbying and the accelerated enforcement are directly linked.

“I don’t think Congress realized that the primary responsibility is on the state agencies,” Reno said. “When we didn’t get referrals from the state agencies, we went to them (and) to HHS to try to develop a mechanism for ensuring that they know we are available to assist when it’s proper and appropriate.”