Friday, August 13, 1999
Pursuit of 'deadbeat' parents paying off
Hamilton Co. effort arrests 3, gets notice
BY DAN HORN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Prosecutors say their pursuit of Hamilton County's worst “deadbeat parents” is paying dividends a week after it began.
uthorities have arrested three suspects, found two others and collected a lump sum payment of $32,000 from one who wasn't even on their most wanted list.
They also got the attention of the man identified as the county's worst offender, Charles Aniagolu. His delinquent payments are estimated at $135,000.
In a telephone interview Thursday from his home in Great Britain Mr. Aniagolu said he was stunned by the allegation and wants to work out a compromise with authorities.
“This is the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened to me,” said Mr. Aniagolu, who described the charges against him as a “travesty of justice.”
“This is a shock.”
Prosecutor Mike Allen said that's the response he was counting on when he announced the indictment last week of 69 parents charged with failing to pay child support.
It was the largest mass indictment in county history and
it sought total payments of $1.3 million.
All told, the 65 men and four women were accused of failing to support 107 children.
“One of the purposes of doing this was to make the public and the deadbeat parents aware of the seriousness of this,” Mr. Allen said. “It appears it has done that.”
The most recent example came Thursday in Common Pleas Court when Mark Fields, a Virginia bail bondsman, wrote a child support check for $32,621.46.
Although he was not on the list of 69, Mr. Allen said Mr. Fields told prosecutors he made the payment after learning of the crackdown on non-support cases.
“He thought it was in his best interest to get up here and do this,” Mr. Allen said.
Judge Robert Ruehlman said the payment was the only thing that kept Mr. Fields out of prison. “They either come in with the money or I send them,” the judge said. “Show me the money. That's my motto.”
No one on the prosecutor's list is accused of owing more money than Mr. Aniagolu.
Prosecutors say Mr. Aniagolu, a former correspondent for the British Broadcasting Co., has failed to support his 12-year-old daughter for more than a decade.
But in an interview Thursday, Mr. Aniagolu said he has repeatedly tried to reach an agreement with Theresa Miller, the mother of his child.
“I had always wanted to reach a proper settlement based on the amount of money I make,” he said. “I am not the sort of person who runs away. I have no desire to run away.”
He said he earned about $30,000 a year with the BBC and now makes less as a free-lance journalist. He said he asked Ms. Miller to send him a breakdown of the child's monthly expenses, but she never did.
Ms. Miller, however, said he has never taken an interest in his daughter, financially or otherwise.
She said she lost a good job and a house in Bond Hill when her daughter became ill a few years ago. “We never recovered from that,” she said.
Ms. Miller said the only payment she received from Mr. Aniagolu was a check that bounced.
Mr. Allen described Mr. Aniagolu's claims as “baseless” and said the best way to resolve the situation is to turn himself in.
He said three other parents have been arrested and two have been located in the week since the indictment. One of them, Vernon Frazier Jr., was tracked down in Walton, Ky., while trying to buy a new house with his new wife.
Prosecutors say Mr. Frazier owes more than $26,000 to his ex-wife, Kimberly Frazier, and her three children.
At the time of his arrest, prosecutors say, he was earning about $4,500 a month as a plant manager for a food processing company.
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