ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 18, 1996 TAG: 9608190080
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: COLCHESTER, VT.
SOURCE: ANNE WALLACE ALLEN ASSOCIATED PRESS
JEFFREY NICHOLS is in jail because he dodged his payments for his kids. To help pay some of that $640,000 debt, a judge ordered his belongings sold.
Marilyn Nichols Kane watched Saturday as crowds of strangers picked through her former husband's lavish belongings, put up for sale to pay the hundreds of thousands he owes her for child support.
``I cried yesterday,'' Kane said of her first look at the dinnerware, crystal, jewelry, antiques and appliances amassed by the man called America's worst deadbeat dad. ``I saw the evil in this - I saw the decadence.''
Her former husband, precious metals consultant Jeffrey Nichols, is in jail in New York City. He owes an estimated $640,000 in back child support and pleaded guilty last month to a federal charge of leaving a state to avoid the obligation.
The contents of the large Vermont house he shared with his new wife, Suzan, were auctioned off to about 350 people who jammed two large tents at a moving company warehouse.
``I knew there was going to be a lot of stuff,'' said auction-goer Ruby Huston of Shelburne.
David Lloyd said he didn't want to get involved in the issues of the case. ``It's a court-ordered sale, and I'm here for the bargains,'' he said.
Kane, a New York real estate agent, has called the auction ``perfect justice.''
After their 17-year marriage ended, she raised their three children. In the meantime, prosecutors said, Nichols moved from New York to Florida to Canada to Charlotte, Vt., to escape his $10,000 monthly support obligation.
He and Suzan Nichols filled their house with furniture, dishes, knickknacks, antiques and pseudo-antiques. She died of cancer last summer. In February, a judge ordered Nichols' belongings sold to pay some of what he owes Kane.
``This was a man who valued things over people,'' Kane said Saturday. ``I feel so appalled at what this man accumulated in five years when he was not supporting his children.''
She said several women came to the auction, not to bid but to meet her.
``There are women here who came up and said `I have no money, Marilyn, but you are my hero,''' Kane said. ``They said, `I will not give up, because you did not give up.'''
Behind her, Raymond Camire muttered loudly in disagreement.
``It's all politics,'' said Camire, 48, whose own marriage ended a few years ago. ``They take a man and make him into a monster.''
That didn't prevent him from checking out the merchandise.
Kane said she hoped to make $30,000 to $50,000 from the auction.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Marilyn Nichols Kane, ex-wife of Jeffrey Nichols,by CNBdubbed "America's worst deadbeat dad," addresses the crowd gathered
to bid on Nichols' possessions.