"Tracking down dad: A new breed of bounty hunter is snaring deadbeat dads the government can't reach"

Excerpts written by W. Hampton Sides.
August 20-22, 1993 issue of USA Weekend. Copyright © 1993 by USA Weekend.
Reproduced by permission.

At 8 o'clock on a soupy July morning, an unmarked cruiser from the Harris County sheriff's office noses into the driveway of the River Walk apartment complex in northeast Houston. Two officers rap on the suspect's door. A man who has obviously just stumbled out of bed stands squinting at the threshold.

 "You Kenneth Wayne Maddux?"
 "Yes sir."
 "You're under arrest."

Maddux knows perfectly well why the authorities are here and doesn't even bother asking about the charges. He climbs into some rumpled clothes and offers his hands to be cuffed. On the surface, he couldn't fit the stereotype any better if he had a scarlet "D" painted on his forehead: Maddux is a "deadbeat dad." He owes $19,000 in back child support to his former wife, Rhonda Hill. He has failed repeatedly to show up in court, and for years it seemed he had the system beat, keeping a low profile, moving from one contract job to the next, keeping his apartment in relatives' names and his assets a secret. Since his divorce from Hill, in 1984, he has virtually ignored their 14-year-old son, Kenny Wayne. "I guess he's just selfish," the boy says.

What Maddux hadn't figured on was that his ex, a nurse who sometimes works 100-hour weeks, would get so fed up that she'd hire a new breed of bounty hunter to go after him. But that's what she did. After seven years of getting nowhere with the Texas attorney general's office, she decided to visit a private collection agency, Child Support Enforcement*, in Austin. She knew such firms often pocket 30 percent of what they collect, but she also knew the government wasn't getting her any money at all. "I was suspicious. But what did I have to lose?"

Because Hill had a court order and wasn't on welfare, she met Child Support Enforcement's* basic eligibility criteria, and the company took her on, accepting power of attorney. Then a tenacious CSE* investigator named Jim Harrelston, a martial arts instructor with charcoal eyes, gilt-tipped boa constrictor boots and a Navy intelligence background, hit the phones. Within weeks he had Maddux's address and an official warrant and began paying daily calls to the constable in Houston, urging him to make an arrest. "Sometimes all it takes is a little nudge in the right direction," Harrelston says.

Hoffman, a former family law attorney who came to Austin from Massachusetts, is in a unique position to understand state agencies' limitations: As a top official in the Texas attorney general's office, he ran the state's child support system from 1986 to 1991. And though he won massive budget increases and instituted nationally lauded reforms, he still felt his agency was running in place. "Government child support agencies have a siege mentality," he says, noting that during his tenure at the attorney general's office each investigator typically worked 1,200 cases at once. "It's not that they're no good at their jobs. They just don't have the time."

Finally, Hoffman became convinced that for-profit firms could play an important role in addressing what he calls a "growing national crisis". Since starting CSE* on a shoestring in 1991, he's become a kind of evangelist for private-sector involvement in child support collection, preaching the gospel at conventions and on op-ed pages. This week Hoffman will speak in Salt Lake City at the annual convention of the National Child Support Enforcement Association. "With private companies, everybody wins," he argues. "The mothers win; the children win...And because we skim off some of the caseload from overworked agencies, the government wins, too."

Says Hoffman, "Some guys think (it's) a big game. We need to change the culture so these men are viewed as what they are: child abusers." He says delinquency crosses social barriers. "We've had cops, prison wardens, ministers."

Although most of their targets are fathers, CSE* has pursued more than a few errant moms. For this reason, Hoffman loathes the term "deadbeat dad." He and his colleagues prefer the legalistic "NCP" ("non-custodial parent").

The case of Kenneth Maddux in Houston required only rudimentary phone work. "That was an easy one," Jim Harrelston says modestly. Calling to say that he had something to mail to Maddux, Harrelston got Maddux's brother to confirm the address of their shared apartment, ensuring an easy arrest. "It's amazing what people will tell you if you ask."

Now the Bastrup County judge is throwing the book at Maddux. He will have to pay $10,000 just to get out of jail–money that will go directly to Hill and Kenny Wayne. Maddux, who makes a decent living in the oil fields when he has a job but who told USA Weekend he didn't have money to meet his obligations, must submit to a $450-a-month payment plan and stay on strict probation until it's all paid. If he misses a single installment, he'll go to jail for as long as six years.

Provided Maddux pays the entire $19,000 he owes, CSE* will take about $5,000. Hill says she will use the remainder to pay off her large credit card bills and give her son a rare treat, a trip to Nashville. "Kenny Wayne wants to see the Grand Ole Opry." She's pleased with the new court arrangement but says it's painful to watch her former husband sink to this level. "If he was poor and didn't have it, and tried every once in a while to send $50, or even just showed that he cared about the boy, I would have found a way to understand.

"I nearly cried the other day when they brought him into the courtroom with handcuffs and shackles," Hill says, staring off into the piney woods behind the house. "That hurt real bad. But I just have to be coldhearted about it. He put himself there."

W. Hampton Sides, the author of Stomping Grounds (William Morrow, $20), a look at American subcultures, has written for The Washington Post, The New Republic and Outside.

* CSE Child Support Enforcement now offers its services to families as Supportkids.

Back to more press release stories