According to the prosecution, a man from Upper Marlboro, Maryland has been refusing to pay his child support, even though he had the means to make the payments. A recent conviction in the court backs this up. The man was said to be guilty by a jury in the Frederick County Circuit Court, which charged him with both non-support of a child who was still considered to be a minor and with constructive criminal contempt for his refusal to pay despite a court order.
At the time of the report, he had not yet been convicted. However, it was anticipated that he would not end up getting a prison sentence out of the deal, instead just being made to pay the money that he owed.
The attorney for the state alleged that the man had been missing payments for a stretch of time that covered 36 months, resulting in $32,000 owed. This began on the first of January in 2011 and went all the way to the 31st of December in 2013. He did make some payments, but he apparently did not pay any money at all on multiple occasions and ended up missing over half of them.
In total, he skipped 90 different child support payments.
The attorney also noted that he should have been able to pay, saying that the decision not to do so was his alone, not something that related to personal circumstances that made the payments impossible.
Anyone who feels they are owed child support that is not being paid may want to look into their legal options to see if their rights have been violated, if court orders have been ignored and if they can take action to force the payments to be made.
Source: WFMD, “Man Convicted For Non-Payment Of Child Support,” June 20, 2014
