“I barely got by. I barely got by,” said Wendee Bradshaw.

Wendee left her ex-husband, Stephen, 17 years ago. Her boys were just one and three at the time. Stephen was supposed to pay $224 a month in child support, but the checks never came. Wendee found herself alone and overwhelmed.

“A lot of anger. A lot of it was financial about food, having to come up with what you’re going to feed your children. But then at the same time, trying to keep a positive attitude for your boys so they don’t feel the stresses you do,” said Wendee. “And at night you go in your room and cry.”

Wendee managed to make ends meet, without Stephen’s help, mainly by cutting corners. She bought few clothes for her boys and rarely took them to the doctor or the dentist. Over time and working with the state, Wendee has managed to get a small fraction of what’s she’s owed, but to date, Stephen still owes her more than $16,000.

“You weren’t even there for them as a father. The least you could do is send money to help pay for their upbringing,” said Wendee.

She’s far from alone, just in Baldwin County there are 5,700 hundred cases DHR and the District Attorney’s Office are handling.

“We have 200 on a docket every week. You know, we’re going through that many cases trying to get someone to pay their child support,” said Director of the Child Support Division Andrea Chastang.

Monica Pierce’s ex-husband Jimmy Roberson was on the docket last week. He was a no show. Monica says that’s about par for the course.

“When it’s school time. I have to do it all by myself. When it’s Christmas time and birthdays, I do it all by myself,” said Pierce. “And it makes me mad that I have to come up here and let somebody else make him take care of his kids when he should do it anyway.”

Pierce says Roberson owes her nearly $14,000 in child support for their two boys.

“Take care of your kids. If you can’t take care of them, don’t make them. I didn’t make them by myself. I shouldn’t have to take care of them by myself,” said Pierce.

“I’ve had custodial parents call and just cry on the phone, they’re like I can’t make it,” said Chastang.

Chastang is in court every week fighting to get parents to pay up and has seen every trick in the book.

“They’re hopping from job to job to job. They work for cash. They work under the table. You can’t send an income deduction order for that. I’ve got guys that will quit work so they won’t have to pay. As soon as that pay check deduction order hits their paycheck, they’re like I’m not doing this,” said Chastang.

Many parents are found in contempt of court for not paying. Some are even indicted and criminally prosecuted, like Arthur Little. He’s currently in jail on a non-support charge. His ex-wife says at one time, he owed $40,000 in child support. Now, she says it’s closer to $11,000.

But Baldwin County District Attorney Hallie Dixon says criminal non-support cases are difficult to prosecute.

“We have to prove that they can pay. Not only that they’re supposed to, but they literally have the money to pay. We have to prove that it’s an intentional non-support of the child,” said Dixon.

Kenneth Shiver was indicted for criminal non-support in November. His ex-wife says he owes her roughly $19,000 in child support.

“We’re only using criminal non-support where really ever other effort has just not worked,” said Dixon.

It’s a long, slow legal battle thousands of parents are all too familiar with, a losing battle so far for Wendee, Pierce and many other parents in the system.

“I would love for all deadbeat dads to understand that it’s not for me. It’s for the money we’ve spent for your children. We did not make these children on our own,” said Wendee.

District Attorney Hallie Dixon says she would like the county to establish a work release program where dead beat parents would report to jail at night and during the day, work off the money they owe. One problem, Dixon says, is getting businesses on board. Dixon says she’d like to have this in place by the end of the year.

http://www.local15tv.com/news/local/story/Deadbeat-Parents-Owe-Millions-in-Mobile-Baldwin/1tc0FkZla0SKBlBNAe6x7g.cspx

SUMMERDALE, Alabama –

“It is unbelievably, it’s heart wrenching. The images are so shocking.”

After seeing those images and the conditions dogs and cats were forced to live in for weeks, it seems the charges against Sharon and Roberta Dueitt should fit the crime but under Alabama law it’s not that simple. “It requires the proof of what they call torture now that is defined and I believe at this point it would fit.” District Attorney Hallie Dixon is looking into upgrading misdemeanor animal abuse charges to state charges of felony animal cruelty. “My hope is that it will yield felony charges and we’ll be able to proceed.”

Roberta and Sharon Dueitt returned home Thursday night to find police and volunteers trying to save hundreds of animals abandoned and left to starve to death at Purple Hearted Puppies rescue in Summerdale. More than three dozen didn’t make it. “We, of course, see horrific things done to children, done to adults, done to our elderly and this was right up there with what you would think is shocking.”

Under state cruelty charges the Dueitt’s could face years in jail and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. “To watch animals starve to death and decompose in a cage, which was particularly horrific to me they were caged they were unable to fend for themselves,” says Dixon.

Dixon plans to meet with investigators from Robertsdale and Summerdale, area veterinarians and the humane society later this week to get a full picture of the investigation. We should know then if the charges will be upgraded.

“If you put me in jail, I lose my job, so I can’t pay.”
Dixon said the system will work with defendants who have lost their jobs or are unable to work due to illness or injury, but will take a hard prosecutorial stance for non-compliance.
“Children are hurting and they are our concern,” Dixon said. “We will work with parents, but if they remain in non-compliance, they will go to jail.”
Dixon said non-custodial parents loose contact from children and fail to realize daily needs due to isolation. Those needs range from sustenance to clipping coupons for groceries. She also noted an increase in female court ordered payments.
“‘Deadbeat dads’ is no longer correct,” she said. “It is deadbeat parents.”
Baldwin County authorities face a unique prosecutorial situation. As a border county, defendants can drive a few minutes to enter Florida or Mississippi.
Non-custodial parents tend to float back and forth, making arrests harder due to the need for multi-jurisdictional cooperation. The BP oil spill and scarcity of jobs also is a factor, according th DHR.
DHR also lists insufficient funding to track down non-custodial parents, lack of court time and lack of available deputies to service warrants.
On the positive, authorities have established paternity and child support measures, tax interception, driver’s license suspension or revocation, passport suspension and criminal prosecution for egregious non-custodial parents, according to the district attorney’s office.
Mack said those arrested and placed in the residential program will receive job counseling and will pay a portion of their wages to court-ordered fee schedules.
“Sometimes, grandparents or a wife will contact us,” Mack said. “If there is a warrant, we will go after them. If they are ordered to pay $100 a month, for instance, they should pay something and work with us. We hope, in the program, to treat them like children themselves, guide them and encourage them to uphold responsibility to their children.”
Mack said he is focused on criminal non-compliance and is working on strenghtening civil non-compliance statutes.
“Food, medical and education needs are expensive, and it’s difficult in a single household,” Mack said. “By the time it gets to us, months, if not years, of non-payment have gone by. We want to help relieve the economic stress on families as soon as we can.”

In a Tuesday hearing, Circuit Judge James Reid ruled against Coombs’ motion for a new trial. The judge delayed ruling on a defense request to review the tapes until after a federal inquiry on the recordings is completed. Reid also ordered that all evidence from the tapes be preserved.
“The defendant has been lawfully convicted of capital murder for the cold-blooded killing of William ‘Bil’ Grunden, whom he lured out onto a remote, dead-end dirt road, shot in the head and robbed,” Dixon said. “The evidence of the defendant’s guilt was so overwhelming that the jury returned its guilty verdict in less than an hour and a half.”
Dixon provided the court with sworn affidavits from all Sheriff’s Office and District Attorney’s Office employees involved in the prosecution of Coombs for the murder of the Pensacola gold dealer. The affidavits asserted that they had not listened to or heard from anyone who had overheard conversations between or involving the defendant, his attorneys, witnesses, jurors, family members or other interested parties.
“Whether recordings were in fact made as part of a security system is absolutely irrelevant to the validity of this conviction unless the state had knowledge of, access to, or information derived from such recordings,” Dixon said. “At no point has that been true.”
Prosecutors had no knowledge of the audio recordings until after the trial was finished, Dixon said, and upon learning of that capability, the district attorney “promptly instructed all such devices be disabled.”
Coombs is merely trying to avoid paying for his crimes, Dixon said. “He is a cold-blooded killer making a last-ditch effort to get away with it,” she said.