Florida Man Arrested for $120,000 Child Support Bill
Paying for child support can be expensive. Not paying for child support can be even more expensive, as one Florida man recently found out.
48-year-old Safety Harbor resident Glen S. Caristinos was arrested just recently on a federal charge of not paying just shy of $120,000 in child support.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Clark stated that the class E federal crime Caristinos was charged with includes, among other things, failure to pay support for an out-of-state child, failure to pay child support for over 2 years, and failure to pay child support of more than $5,000. The maximum fine Caristinos faces if convicted is a $250,000 fine and 2 years in prison.
Caristinos and his ex-wife have had a rather tumultuous past, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Special Agent Catherine Richard. They met in 1995 at a bar that he owned, ended up getting married and having a child in 1999, splitting up in 2001 (child support payments started here), filing for divorce in 2003, and a restraining order was filed against Caristinos around 2006.
According to the affidavit, Caristinos had been avoiding paying child support almost entirely. The last payment the mother of Caristinos’ child had received was back in early 2012, after a judge ordered him to pay $500 or face jail time.
By the time the end of December 2014 rolled around, Caristinos owed $119,094 in child support. A warrant for his arrest was issued on January 21, and Caristinos was arrested in Florida 2 days later.
The specific details of both sides of this issue are not known, but one conclusion we can draw from this situation is that simply avoiding your child support payments doesn’t make them go away. Quite the opposite, in fact.
