Delinquent parents get early morning wake-up call Thursday

Armed with 52 arrest warrants for not playing child support, police in Whitley County began knocking on doors before dawn Thursday to deliver a wake up call to dead beat parents.

Over a dozen officers, including most of the Williamsburg Police Department and others from three agencies, met at the Williamsburg Tourism and Convention Center about 5 a.m. to pick up arrest warrants and packets of information on suspects owing over $500,000 in combined back child support.

Working in two to three person teams, the officers scattered across the county as part of Operation Pay Back.

“We are trying to round up some child support offenders. They range from those that don’t owe very much up to tens of thousands of dollars,” said Whitley County Attorney Paul Winchester. “These are people that we have tried to work with, given them opportunities and this is the end result today. We have to do this to let them know we are serious about them fulfilling their obligations.”

Winchester said those arrested had either been indicted for flagrant non-support or had been held in contempt of court for failing to live up to child support agreements in district court.

Winchester said the effort was done as a roundup to let people know that Whitley County is serious about child support collection.

“The weather was bad, but these are offenders, who have been given every opportunity to work something out with the county attorney’s office and the court system,” said Williamsburg Public Affairs Officer Shawn Jackson. “We are focusing on offenders, who are totally noncooperative with the court system. We are out here rounding up the offenders, who owe a significant amount of child support.”

17 people had been arrested by 11 a.m. Thursday on delinquent child support related charges including: Calvin Ellis, Rhonda G. Veach, Scott Johnson, Charles Gray, Johnny Johnson, Derrick W. Landry, Michael Labanion, John Lawson, Brian K. Canada, Mark A. Fuson, Lloyd Gibson, Timothy R. Carr, Terry S. Adkins, Tommy L. Mozingo, Ashley Gambrel, Timothy S. Gibbs and Anthony Vanover.

After the offenders were arrested, they were brought back to the Williamsburg Tourism and Convention where police, representatives of the county attorney’s office, which oversees child support collections, and Whitley County Deputy Jailers were waiting to process them for their trip to jail.

Other agencies participating in the round up included Corbin Police Department, Kentucky State Police, the Kentucky State Police Division of Vehicle Enforcement and the Whitley County Detention Center.