VIA INDYSTAR.COM Out of work, broke and drinking too much, Eric Wilborn was sent to jail three times.
The 41-year-old Indianapolis mechanic wasn’t robbing people or getting into bar fights; he’d fallen behind on child support payments.
Wilborn now has a full-time job and is making his regular $170-a-week payments, but he’s an example of how seriously authorities take delinquent parents and how much discretion they have in prosecuting them.
“Thirty days in jail three times,” he said, “makes it hard to keep a job.”
In an effort to get more people to make child support payments, Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry on Wednesday announced an amnesty program through Sept. 30.
“If you are motivated, we will help you do the right thing,” Curry said.
The office will target 400 parents who recently fell behind on child support payments. If they come in, the prosecutor will refrain from pursuing criminal and civil penalties and will offer help finding work.
“Whether they owe $1,000 or $100,000, if they stop delaying and start paying now, we will help them get job assistance, keep their driver’s license and avoid criminal or civil charges,” Curry said at a news conference announcing the “Stop Delaying — Start Paying” incentive.
The prosecutor’s office handles about 76,000 child support cases and collected $107 million in payments in 2010.
“Most parents pay most of what they owe,” Curry said.
State law gives the prosecutor’s office broad latitude to collect money from delinquent parents, including garnisheeing wages and intercepting income tax returns. It can also can suspend driver’s licenses, professional licenses and fishing licenses. And it can put the delinquent parent in jail.
In Marion County, four to five parents a week are threatened with jail sentences, and about 100 a week have their wages garnisheed, said John Owens, chief deputy of the child support division.
“This marks a shift in philosophy to one of collaboration” with parents, he said of the amnesty program. “As long as you make a best effort, you won’t have to worry about the consequences.”
But Ned Holstein, founder of Fathers and Families, a national family court reform organization, said state laws on delinquent parents are counterproductive and unfairly punish poor parents.
“It turns poor fathers into fugitives who have to work in the underground economy and keep moving, and Mom doesn’t get anything because of it,” Holstein said. “They’ll go after a guy who is making minimum wage, trying his best but only making 80 percent of the payment.”
Owens said the amnesty program tries to address that problem by getting the parent on a payment schedule even if past payments aren’t recoverable.
“We are trying to get them re-engaged,” he said. “Let’s face it; if someone is $20,000 behind, that is a debt that won’t be repaid.”
Wilborn, who is about $50,000 behind in child support payments, said he got divorced 12 years ago when his daughter was about 3.
Wilborn struggled for years to keep up with payments while abusing alcohol and having trouble finding jobs. He did three 30-day sentences in jail for failure to pay and had his driver’s license suspended. The latter nearly cost him a job offer.
About a month ago, he contacted the prosecutor’s office — before the amnesty was announced — and said they “were extremely helpful.”
“I had a letter with me that was the job offer,” he said. “I paid $500, and (the prosecutor’s office) must have made a call or pushed a button, and they returned my license.”
Wilborn said he makes $15 an hour now and brings home $300 a week after his support payments are deducted.
