Fleenor: “We Don’t Want These People In Jail. We Want Payment”

Child support tip lines
Virginia Division of Child Support Enforcement: 800-257-9986
Sullivan County, Tenn., Department of Human Services Child Support Office: 423-279-3295

ABINGDON, Va. – Two of those accused of being among Virginia’s “Most Wanted” child-support evaders call Washington County home.

But it’s hard to be certain exactly where home usually is for Rodney Farrell Stanley, 57, and Bobby Joe Cannon Jr., 35.

The local sheriff notes that people sought for past-due payments like Stanley and Cannon – Washington County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court documents indicate they owe a combined $60,807 – sometimes change addresses several times a year.

“They’re mobile,” Washington County Sheriff Fred Newman said of child-support evaders in general. “They’ll stay at one place for a little while and when support services get hot on their tails, they’ll relocate.”

The bottom line, Newman said, is that time, patience and a lot of luck is needed to track someone running from unpaid child support.

In Southwest Virginia, that luck is needed to collect unpaid and overdue child support valued at nearly $77 million.

Virginia Child Support Enforcement Division statistics show that one in every 11 Virginia children has a parent who refuses to consistently pay. In Tennessee, the state Department of Human Services statistics show that number is one in every 12 children.

In Sullivan County, Tenn., roughly $885,000 worth of child support is due each month, notes the Tennessee Department of Human Services. Of that amount, $522,000, or about 59 percent, is paid sporadically or not at all, according to department estimates. (Similar monthly numbers were not available for Virginia counties.)

“It’s very frustrating when those parents don’t pay because you know there’s a kid suffering,” said Michelle Mowery Johnson, spokeswoman for the Tennessee human services department.

In Virginia, Stanley owes $33,805 for support of a girl, and Cannon owes $27,066 to a boy and a girl, according to state child support enforcement records.

Both men landed on Virginia’s updated list of the top nine offenders in October. The list is as part of a program designed to generate tips on their whereabouts so they can be subpoenaed for court. Being among the top nine doesn’t necessarily mean they are wanted for arrest, only that they have outstanding debts that surpass the child-support norm. However, authorities have issued a warrant for Cannon’s arrest because of his failure to appear in court when ordered.

To make the most-wanted list, noncustodial parents must owe at least $8,000, have missed payments for six straight months, and their case must be in the courts.

Johnson said Tennessee stopped producing most-wanted lists several years ago. With few tips generated, she said, such posters became little more than a tool “to shame [evaders] into paying.”

National fathers and men’s rights columnist Glenn Sacks also questions the effectiveness of the lists. In a telephone interview, Sacks said the lists only hound into hiding many noncustodial parents who want to pay, but are down on their financial luck.

“What happens is they fall behind, they can’t get a modification [reduced payment plan] ... and they get an obligation that they can never pay off,” Sacks said.

Michael McCormick, executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, said that in those cases, divorced dads are at a huge disadvantage.

“If you’re a husband and you lose your job, nothing happens,” McCormick said. “But if you’re a noncustodial father and you lose your job, the next thing you know you have a real likelihood of being put in prison.”

Eric Fleenor, the acting district manager of the child support division in Abingdon, said arresting fathers is not the objective.

“We don’t want these people in jail. We want payment,” he said.

In the shadows

State child support departments usually find updated addresses by culling through traffic tickets, tax forms and other official records. States also subpoena cell phone records to find parents, or even revoke driver’s licenses for nonpayment. The Tennessee Department of Human Services reports yanking more than 7,000 licenses last year.

Tips generated by Virginia’s recently released list have resulted in authorities netting one alleged evader – a mother living in the state’s Shenandoah Valley region. Wendy Marie Gentry, 34, of Hinton, is listed by the state’s child support services as owing $23,304 to two boys. She is being held in the Rockingham County Jail on a charge of missing a bond payment on a July 2007 arrest. State child support records show that her arrest was on a charge of failing to appear for a child support hearing.

Stanley, pictured on Virginia’s wanted poster with gray hair and deep laugh lines, is listed as a painting contractor with an Abingdon address. His former wife, Sheri Alexander, also of Abingdon, is a retired sales clerk who said she now lives on monthly disability checks due to arthritis and an ailing back.

Alexander believes Stanley might live somewhere other than the address listed on the state’s roster. A Bristol Herald Courier investigation reveals that her hunch might be correct.

Court records have traced Stanley to Georgia and Florida. But Alexander thinks he might have moved into Tennessee, either to Kingsport or Johnson City. She bases her hunch on cell phone records and reported sightings of Stanley motoring through the region in a white pickup truck.

In her opinion, he has become adept at earning an under-the-table living and hiding in the shadows.

“He knows the system very well,” Alexander said.

Their marriage ended 10 years ago, when their daughter, Carly, was 3 years old. Since then, Carly has learned to play the saxophone and has joined her middle school concert band. Her saxophone prowess has earned her a spot with the nearby high school marching band.

“I think she’s very frustrated with the fact that we have a very hard time getting by,” Alexander said.

Stanley still pops up in their lives through sporadic telephone calls and even the occasional child-support check. He paid $700 last year, and mailed a check for $350 earlier this year, according to records in Washington County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.

The staggered payments fall short of the court’s orders that Stanley send monthly payments, of about $195.

Alexander believes Stanley intends to pay just enough to appease local courts and law enforcement.

“His terminology to me was, as long as you pay a little bit every now and then, they’re not going to put you in jail,” she said.

Patterns

Wendy Marie Gentry bucks the child support stereotype in more ways than gender. She also falls into the minority circle that owes the majority of the past-due payments.

More than $105 billion worth of past-due payments has accrued since the national child support program began in 1975, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates.

Most noncustodial parents behind on payments owe roughly $5,000, national estimates show. However, they account only for about 6 percent of the total past-due debt.

More than 90 percent of the country’s unpaid child support is owed by a small number of noncustodial parents. Their individual debts often average around $30,000. Based on the amount of their alleged debt, Stanley and Cannon appear to fit that profile. So does Wendy Marie Gentry.

Kenneth Gentry, of Elkton, Va., rarely thought about his unusual parental predicament: He is the custodial father of two boys, and it’s their biological mother who is accused of stiffing child support obligations.

“When I got custody of my boys, I knew it was unusual for a father to get custody,” he said by telephone.

Rockingham County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Wendy Gentry on Oct. 23, slightly more than a week after the Virginia Child Support Enforcement Division pictured her on the wanted list. Tips on her location began trickling in the next day, according to a department news statement.

Since she vanished from their lives, sons, Casey, now 13, and Zack, now 11, have taken up motorbike racing and their father has remarrried.

Kenneth Gentry’s thoughts turn to his ex-wife so seldom that he can’t remember the year of their divorce.

There was a time, however, when her child support payments would have been welcomed. She was expected to pay $296 a month.

“At first, it would have been nice for child care, but through the years I’ve made a life for us,” Gentry said. “To be honest, [receiving child support] doesn’t matter much to me.”

Not every pattern shared by Gentry, Stanley and Cannon point to a deadbeat parent bent on beating the system, noted Sacks, the columnist and spokesman for men’s rights.

Wanted lists “repeatedly” feature noncustodial parents with low-paying jobs. Virginia’s most recent list includes factory workers, a taxi cab driver, a carnival worker and a car salesman, all people who Sacks suggests might never be able earn enough income to pay their familial debts.

“When times are good, you’re working. When times are not, you’re not working,” he said.

Low wages also are a sign of a noncustodial parent who is unable to hire a lawyer savvy enough to convince a judge that dwindling wages should equal lower monthly payments, Sacks said.

“It’s too hard to get downward modification in the child support system,” he said. “With all the hysteria over deadbeat dads, the judges think the guy’s lying or at fault.”

Dead ends

Cannon, who owes $27, 066 for a boy and a girl who are now in college, hasn’t paid child support since July 2003, Washington County Juvenile Court records show. The records also include his arrest warrant on a contempt-of-court charge related to a child support hearing in August 2004.

He is pictured on Virginia’s Most Wanted poster flashing a youthful smile and wearing a tuxedo. The photo looks to be from a high school yearbook.

His ex-wife is a Smyth County, Va., factory worker who requested that her name not be used. She divorced Cannon 10 years ago, and doubts he will ever pay his share of child care. He’s expected to pay $365 a month, she said. And she admits it would help if a check were to arrive in the mail.

“He should have to pay,” she said. “My kids still have a lot of college to go and I’d like to see that through.”

Court records show that Cannon has lived at multiple addresses in Washington County over the years. State child support records give a Meadowview address, but the Herald Courier could not find anyone in that neighborhood who recognized his photo or name.

Washington County General District Court records show that police in Damascus cited him in January on a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession. He was found guilty in absentia months later, court records show, but has not paid his $250 fine.

On the citation, Cannon cites his home address as Astro Drive in Abingdon. Washington County Emergency Services, which keeps all addresses for 911 calls, does not have an Astro Drive on its maps. Abingdon does have an Astor Drive, and there is a house number similar to the one listed by Cannon. He does not live there, however, the occupants said.

Also leading to a dead end was the Herald Courier’s search for Stanley. He does not live at the Abingdon mobile home park noted in state child support records. Living there instead was a man who looked similar to Stanley’s photograph, sharing the same deep laugh lines. When showed a picture of Stanley, the man simply nodded his head and said: “That’s not me.”

He then produced his own child support papers, which listed a name other than Stanley and a child of a different name.

Stanley’s mother, reached at her Abingdon home, said she rarely talks to her son and, because she was “not under oath,” did not have to share his telephone number and “possible” address.

She promised to pass on the newspaper’s interview request if she happened to hear from him.

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