Williams to fight support tab

Friday, March 28, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

SUN STAFF REPORTS

A Family Court hearing to reconsider a judgment that Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas, must pay $23,000 in back child support to a woman he divorced 13 years ago is set for April 14.

The motion will be heard at 9 a.m. by Judge Gary Redmon, who earlier this month made the ruling in favor of Debra Gray of Oakland, Calif.

Williams immediately vowed to fight the ruling. The problem arose, he said, when he refused to rekindle his relationship with Gray in 1994.

Williams was -- and still is -- in Carson City at the Legislature and did not attend the hearing in which he was ordered to pay the back child support for the ex-couple's two children, 17-year-old Wesley and 15-year-old Briar, who live with Gray.

A law prohibits state legislators from being forced into court while the Legislature is in session.

Gray, who contends she has been forced to auction off her home over the matter, says Williams was ordered to pay $110 a month for each of their children after the couple ended their seven-year marriage.

In addition to ordering Williams to pay the five-figure sum, Redmon increased his monthly support payments from $220 to $1,000.

Gray says the assemblyman, who earns $53,000 a year as a management analyst for the city of Las Vegas, made just four payments after their divorce and stopped the checks in January 1985.

But Williams said his son Wesley lived with him in Las Vegas from the sixth grade through his sophomore year in high school while his daughter lived in Oakland.