Pay for Kids or Pay the Price

Fathers who drive expensive cars while their children limp to school in last year’s shoes should start looking over their shoulders. Going to another state to evade paying back child support could land them in federal prison and subject them to steep fines as well.

Federal agents last month nabbed 61 deadbeat dads who collectively owed millions of dollars. The widely publicized sweep was a first, a three-day hunt in 25 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

Six of those arrested were in California or had children in the state. Eight more of the most flagrant deadbeats, including one mother, were collared this month. A few delinquent parents heard about the captures and turned themselves in.

Government officials expect some who owe big money to surrender or make good. That was the aim of the sweep, and the arrests should continue as long as needed to get the message across.

For the crime of falling behind $10,000 or more in court-ordered support and leaving the state to avoid payment, delinquent parents could spend two years in prison and face a fine of up to $250,000. That possibility should limber up the ex’s check-writing hand.

The agents get their authority from the Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act, which President Clinton signed in 1998. The Bush administration called for aggressive enforcement, authorizing investigators from the Department of Health and Human Services to arrest the worst delinquents.

Working with U.S. marshals and state and local authorities, the agents found people like a doctor in the Northern Mariana Islands with a six-figure income who owed $86,000 in back support for her two daughters in Ohio. She awaits extradition.

In Los Gatos, Calif., agents tracked down a disbarred lawyer who writes software. He had moved from Pennsylvania, where his child lives, to Indiana, Colorado and California while his child support bill expanded, to $86,000 in this case too.

The agents don’t look for financially broke parents, who, even if caught, could never catch up. They look for those with good incomes and assets.

“We’re not asking these people to be good parents. They don’t have to take their kids to Disneyland or nurse them when they get sick in the middle of the night,” said Catherine Harris, a Health and Human Services spokeswoman. “But they do have to pay their court-ordered child support.”

Millions of parents renege on child support. Two-thirds of the delinquents live in a different state from their sons and daughters, according to federal statistics.

Child support isn’t a federal debt, but running up a bill and fleeing the state is a federal felony. The dragnet telegraphs a message: Settle up. Make a payment plan. Surrender before you get caught.