Deadbeat Moms On the Rise

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by Morgan Fogarty
Bio | Email | Follow: @MorganFogarty

Story Created: May 13, 2012 at 9:01 PM EDT

Story Updated: May 14, 2012 at 12:04 AM EDT

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Meet Mecklenburg County's top two deadbeat moms: 40-year-old Bridgett Barbour owes more than $10,000 in child support and 51-year-old Patricia Ramirez owes more than $20,000, according to the Sheriff's Office. 

"(I'm) seeing a lot more situations where mom is not the good guy anymore," says local family law attorney Tonya Graser Smith.  She says deadbeat moms make up 25% of her child custody caseload.  That's up from about 15% five years ago.

When deadbeat parents don't pay, state and federal resources are used to take care of their children.  Smith says, "It becomes every body's problem and everybody ends up having to pay for that parent that's not in place."
 
"The ones we're coming across are getting a lot better at hiding," says local private investigator Keith Hollen.  He says over the past few years, more dads have hired him to find deadbeat moms.  At first, it was economy driven.  Women went back to work, earned more money, but didn't want to pay more child support.  Now, Hollen says many of his cases involve deadbeat moms who are starting new businesses and losing interest in their kids.

"We are finding it's a lot of females that are doing that.  They're just trying to get that established and to do that, it'll take 24 hours, 7 days a week almost," he says.

It can take Hollen one day to find a deadbeat parent or months.  Smith says the faster you seek legal support in a custody case, the better your chances are of finding your child's parent and making them pay.  She says, "If you act fast enough, you're gonna have a much higher success rate."    

Smith says moms and dads are on equal footing when it comes to custody cases in North Carolina.  Women receive no legal preference.

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