Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 24, 1990 TAG: 9004240391
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LUTZ, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
James C. Parker may have tried to hide, but the state of Florida is trying to show that he cannot hide his money.
Pasco County deputies last week seized office equipment, guns and knives from his home in this Tampa suburb. The items will be sold at auction, with the money going toward a judgement for $148,536 in back child support.
Parker, a 45-year-old insurance claims adjuster, walked out of his Virginia apartment in 1968, leaving wife Patricia Bennett with two daughters and a third baby on the way.
A court in Virginia ordered Parker, then known as Oscar David Gibson, to pay child support. Instead, he disappeared. He had himself declared legally dead. He assumed a new identity, remarried twice and moved to Florida.
Meanwhile, Bennett was back in Springfield, Va., struggling to rear three daughters. At one point, the family got by only with public assistance.
Eventually, Bennett began tracking down Parker through his foster parents and his second wife. After finding out he was still in the insurance business, she searched state insurance-licensing offices for the name James C. Parker - and found him in 1984.
Three years later, in December 1987, a Pasco County circuit judge ordered Parker to begin paying the $148,000 at $100 a week.
Since then, Parker has paid regularly, but attorneys for the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services say his payments barely touch the principal. So the department went to court to have some of Parker's personal property seized, converted to cash and applied to the debt.
"The policy is that child support is a moral and legal obligation, and every remedy should be available," said Cecelia M. Redman, a Tampa lawyer who represents the department in child support cases.
Whether the department tried to have personal property seized depends on the circumstances of each case, but Redman said the agency is becoming more aggressive.
"They are beginning to explore this remedy," she said. "I think you're going to find it a lot less unusual than it used to be."
Parker was home as deputies collected his belongings. "I don't really have anything to say about this today," he said.
The case has caught the interest of the Florida Supreme Court, which is considering it because it begs a "question of great public importance."
Bennett and her supporters say judges should be able to lock up parents who do not pay out-of-state judgements for overdue child support. As it stands, they say, Florida is a haven for runaway parents.
Justices have had the case for more than two years but have issued no decision.
Meanwhile, Bennett's story has been the subject of a book, "Runaway Father," and a made-for-television movie is in the works.
by CNB