Washington, D.C.
Federal agents are rounding up dozens of fathers who have failed to pay child support, in an unprecedented crackdown on deadbeat dads. Officers have caught 69 men in recent weeks, in a sweep that covered 29 states. These men, along with 33 others sought in the dragnet, owe a total of $5 million. An Oklahoma sheet-metal worker has the biggest debt, $297,000. Many of the scofflaws had dodged payments by moving to another state. The wave of arrests shows that the Bush administration plans to make parents pay up wherever they go, officials said. “This is just the beginning,” said Matthew Kochanski, a federal investigator for the Department of Health and Human Services.
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