County raises stakes against parents who don’t pay support

Bill Gang

Saturday, May 2, 1998 | 5 a.m.

One could say Mark Slack is living up to his name.

For years, the 44-year-old Clark County resident did just about everything he could to dance around the child support obligation for his three children. As time rolled by and his children grew with only sporadic contact with their father, Slack's child support debt also grew to its current total of $80,000.

It's not that he couldn't pay, he simply decided he wasn't going to, Deputy District Attorney Sylvia Teuton said. She explained that in recent years Slack worked jobs that would pay him under the table to avoid the inevitable wage garnishment.

Court orders didn't faze him, nor did being tossed into jail in 1994. He paid $900 bail and was released. He also seemed unaffected by the guilt of knowing his children were going without necessities and, for a short period, were forced onto the welfare rolls.

"We know he is very capable of working as a heavy-equipment operator," Teuton said, noting that Slack was making $33 an hour in 1996, the year before he began taking only jobs for cash and was subsequently charged with a felony for not paying his child support.

Attempts to contact Slack for comment were unsuccessful, and his attorney declined comment as well.

It is because of parents like Slack, who just don't get the message, that the Clark County district attorney's office Child Support Division has decided it's time to bring out the big hammer -- charging deadbeat parents criminally.

With criminal charges, the focus suddenly changes. It's no longer about child support, or disdain for an ex-spouse, or what may be perceived as an unjust and repressive Family Court system. It's about the deadbeat parent's freedom, pure and simple, and whatever that will cost.

Recalcitrant noncustodial parents are not unusual. Many already are being coerced into submission by the district attorney's office through wage attachment, IRS refund check interceptions and suspensions of driver's licenses and even professional licenses.

Last year $1.7 million was squeezed from deadbeat parents who saw the wisdom of paying their child support rather than losing their driving privileges.

Child support hearing masters at Family Court have the authority to throw deadbeat parents in jail on contempt charges for up to 25 days. But Teuton lamented that the threat of jail doesn't deter them because they know they likely will be kicked out of the overpopulated county jail after a couple of days.

Still, the district attorney's Child Support Division collected more than $50 million last year for custodial parents who are part of the 41,000 open cases in the unit.

But there are those who would rather wallow in a murky pool of hatred toward an ex-spouse -- at almost any cost -- than pay child support that often is perceived as benefitting the former mate.

That is why District Attorney Stewart Bell and his staff decided to charge deadbeat parents with felonies for the intentional subversion of their court-ordered child support obligations.

The law making intentional nonsupport a crime has been on the books for years, but Bell said that criminal prosecutions are time consuming and expensive and his office hasn't had sufficient staff to pursue that avenue -- until now.

Bell is clear that the purpose is not to side with one parent against another in their emotion-wracked, post-separation worlds.

The initial purpose is simply to get their children the money that is their legal right, if not the noncustodial parent's moral obligation.

The secondary purpose, he admitted candidly, is to punish the deadbeat parents.

The bonus for Bell is that such prosecutions send a loud message to other reluctant providers that there is a remedy available if they choose not to live up to their obligations.

Slack's was the first case, winding its way into District Court in April and resulting in a plea bargain that, at least for three years, will either provide money for his children or land him behind bars.

Slack had been charged with felony nonsupport but pleaded guilty in District Judge Michael Douglas' courtroom to a gross misdemeanor nonsupport count.

Teuton said that in the deal, Slack will get a suspended one-year jail term in favor of three years probation. A condition of probation is that he keep current with his child support payments plus pay toward the arrears.

Formal sentencing isn't until June 4, but already there are problems. Deputy District Attorney Rita Brookins said that Slack was released from jail after his plea on April 9 with the understanding that he would make a child support payment by April 15.

That hasn't happened, Brookins said.

Brian Richard Shank, who is more than $21,000 behind in his child support for his two children, agreed to a different kind of deal on Monday in Justice of the Peace Nancy Oesterle's courtroom.

Teuton said the prosecution will be postponed for three months to give Shank a chance to show he will meet his financial obligations. If he does, and continues to do so for the next year, he will be allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor rather than face the felony count.

Teuton said that is the way Shank's ex-wife wanted it in her efforts to obtain the money she needs in the shortest possible time.

The differences in the levels of charges involves the amount of time child support has not been paid. Failure to pay for three months is a misdemeanor, six months is a gross misdemeanor and it becomes a felony when support is intentionally not paid for a year.

The more serious allegation carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and the baggage of a felony conviction, while a gross misdemeanor is punishable by up to a year in the county jail. A misdemeanor count carries the possibility of six months in jail. Probation is possible in each case.

So far, Teuton said, the cases have sailed along the way it was hoped, with little opposition and grudging promises to pay to stay out of jail.

But Bell said it's not as simple as filing criminal charges whenever a noncustodial parent falls behind for an extended period of time. The key elements that must be proven by prosecutors are the ability to pay and the intentional refusal to meet the obligation.

"You can't prosecute people for being poor," Bell explained.

In addition, Bell said that when his office decided to use prosecution as a weapon, there was a need to avoid allegations of selective prosecution from criminal defense lawyers.

He said his staff put together a computer program to pick out the worst of the worst among the deadbeat parents.

"They had to have huge arrearages ... so astronomical as to offend the sensibilities," Bell said. "We had to have good information that they can pay and there was the potential for restitution."

He also required that both sides in the cases live in Clark County for expediency and cost efficiency.

The computer spit out nine cases.

In addition to Slack and Shank, charges have been filed against three others. Franklin Wilcox is scheduled to appear in Justice Court this month and Scott Landerman and Joseph Matthew Bolls, 27, were arrested last week. Bolls is $3,300 in arrears on support for two children.

Brookins said charges were approved for two others and paperwork is still being processed on the remaining two. In addition, she said that eight other cases have been determined to be ripe for prosecution.

Landerman, a former employee of the Clark County Public Works Department, owes more than $28,000 in back child support for his four minor children.

"His ex-wife has had a rough time," Brookins said. "She lost her house and had to move into a one-bedroom apartment with the four kids."

Brookins said that when Landerman resigned from his county job, his final check was $17,000 yet none of it went toward child support.

Deputy District Attorney Elana Hatch, who supervises the legal efforts in the Child Support Division, said the criminal prosecutions must be "cost efficient and time efficient" to justify the approach.

"We're using it as a tool to collect child support," she said.

Hatch indicated the office is considering a diversion program like the one in place in California that is less labor intensive than pursuing criminal charges to the point of conviction.

The California plan still utilizes criminal charges but defers prosecution for two years. During that time, there are regular status checks to determine if support is being paid. If it is, the charges eventually are dismissed.

The Clark County district attorney's Child Support Division was established more than two decades ago and has been growing steadily since then.

Hatch said that over the past couple of years the number of active cases has been steady at about 40,000 but the money collected and passed on to custodial parents has been increasing. In 1997 it reached nearly $51 million, up from $46 million the year before.

"It's fascinating to us that the program yields more money each year," Hatch said.

She credits part of the increase to the wage withholding program and the acceptance of that in the business community.

But what truly thrills her are the changes she has seen in many irresponsible, noncustodial parents once the volatile issue of child support is taken out of the equation.

Hatch told of seeing deadbeat parents grow up, become responsible and re-establish relationships with their children.

"Child support may sound like a small issue, but it really makes a difference," Hatch continued. "What we do affects the next generation, lets it excel."

"It helps if children go to school being well fed, having clothes and participating in activities."

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