07151999 - News Article - Parolee risks more charges

Parolee risks more charges
NWI Times
Jul 15, 1999
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/parolee-risks-more-charges/article_51a7c4e9-c481-51cd-8695-ddafa35ca27a.html
VALPARAISO -- As close as Bruce Dumas, director of Porter County's child support collection office, can figure it, parolee David Fedornock is about $20,000 behind in child support.

Fedornock, of Hebron, disputes the amount, but admits he's behind.

Charged with a felony for chronically failing to support his daughter, Fedornock was sentenced to a three-year prison term. He served 18 months.

According to some familiar with child support issues, that's usually the ultimate wake-up call. From July 1998 to May of this year, the Indiana Department of Corrections counted only 38 such offenders. For the full year prior to that, the DOC counted 50.

But, released in mid-September, it wasn't long before Fedornock again fell behind in payments.

Appearing before Porter County Magistrate James Johnson Wednesday, Fedornock was still delinquent and not maintaining regular payments.

His ex-wife, Tamara Schwanke, testified Fedornock's record shows he pays when and how much he chooses.

"It's due every week," Schwanke told the court. "It should come every week."

Fedornock testified he slipped behind as a result of a car accident and job setbacks.

He agreed to having his wages garnished in yet another effort to get regular payments to Schwanke to help support their 13-year-old daughter.

Schwanke, who in April said she was throwing in the towel on collecting child support, appeared in court as well, although she and her father, Gus Schwanke, have little faith Fedornock will honor his latest pledge.

"What happened today has been happening for 12 years," Gus Schwanke said following the hearing.

Fedornock's parole officer, Stan Bafia, was not available, but Bafia's supervisor, Robert Jennings, said Bafia has to work with the prosecutor's office on it.

"Bafia provides this information to the parole board who will give us information as to what they think we should do," Jennings said.

"I haven't seen one like this," Jennings said. He's been with the parole office in Gary for 35 years.

Fedornock's parole isn't up until next March.

Parole board chairman Raymond Justak said so far Fedornock's record is clear.

But if he's charged with parole violation and convicted, his sentence would be consecutive to whatever the trial court ordered on the original offense.

Fedornock himself seems unconcerned. "I told (Bafia) I was between jobs. I showed him my receipts."

Steven Johnson of the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council said Fedornock's case is rare.

"The thinking is if you really have a chance to get the money, they're not going to pay while they're in prison."

Johnson said non-support is not a typical criminal violation. "I would hope parole on this kind of offense would include they meet their child support obligation."

It's an automatic condition of parole that offenders not commit any other crime. "But perhaps in this situation," Johnson said, "it needs to be specified."

Also upsetting to Schwanke is that no one in the Porter County Prosecutor's Office notified Bafia of Fedornock's continued delinquency.

"We don't get that much information from Porter County," Jennings said.

Porter County Prosecutor James Douglas was not available nor was Deputy Prosecutor Brian Gensel.

Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter did not return calls. However, a Lake County deputy prosecutor, who declined to be named, said normally when a repeat offender comes to his attention, he does notify the parole office.

Michael Kharsen, spokesman for the Child Support Enforcement division of the U.S. Administration for Children and Family, said. some states are beginning to deal with chronic non-payers.

"In Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maryland and others, there are programs that are about intervening with chronic fathers who don't pay. They've shown very mixed results so far,"

Some of these programs began as voluntary, but have evolved into being required. Some aspects include meeting with counselors and attending group sessions where they identify whatever their problems might be.

Schwanke and her father believe Wednesday's hearing likely won't change the system's ability to deal with Fedornock.

"If they'll be able to garnish it, fine," Schwanke said. But Fedornock's history indicates he won't keep the job, she said.

Gus Schwanke also is resigned.

Schwanke, 68, said his generation felt obligated to support their families. "I worked two jobs."

"It's completely different now," he said. "You might say I'm obsolete."

04191999 - News Article - Mom ends battle for support Tamara Schwanke quits system after it starts new round with delinquent father who is on parole for non - payment

Mom ends battle for support
Tamara Schwanke quits system after it starts new round with delinquent father who is on parole for non - payment
NWI Times
Apr 19, 1999
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/mom-ends-battle-for-support/article_c5457729-2c39-5631-b1b2-d6d015ba1097.html
HEBRON -- More than three years ago, Karen Wheeler of Chesterton was so vexed from trying to collect $34,000 in child support that she and her children picketed on the steps to the Porter County Administration Center.

Tamara Schwanke of Hebron is taking a different route.

She's decided to quit trying.

"I give up. I'm done."

Schwanke, 33, said she finds the collection system as "degrading" as trying to make her former husband meet his responsibilities.

Court records show Schwanke's former husband, David Fedornock, 35, was more than $16,000 behind in child support payments in 1995. Schwanke claims the actual amount is much more than twice that figure.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Webber ultimately sentenced Fedornock to three years in the Indiana Department of Corrections for failing to support the couple's daughter. He served 18 months.

It took eight years for authorities to throw in the towel on Fedornock and seek the criminal charges that sent him to prison. A probable cause affidavit said "any further efforts to force compliance from the defendant through the civil courts would be pointless."

Since Fedornock's release from prison in mid-September, court records show he's paid $1,930 to the Porter County Clerk's Office.

But $1,400 of that amount was paid in a lump sum on March 17, the same day he was ordered into court for a hearing after Schwanke notified prosecutors Fedornock was again delinquent in making the payments.

It's uncertain who made the payment or how. Fedornock never showed up for the hearing, prompting a bench warrant for his arrest. There's no record of any payment since that time.

And Schwanke actually received only $350 of the $1,400 because the state of Indiana kept the rest.

"The state wants its take first," Schwanke said.

She said she hasn't been on public assistance in four years, but the state is trying to get its money back for when she was.

Schwanke said the state, however, told her it would send the whole amount if Bruce Dumas, head of the Child Support Collection Division in Porter County, would OK it.

But Schwanke said Dumas' office told her he doesn't take calls. "You always have to write a letter and you can't expect to talk to anyone and you have to expect a six-week wait before any response," she said.

"The prosecutors say I have a hearing July 14, but that's three months, for god's sake."

Dumas couldn't be reached.

His boss, Porter County Prosecutor James Douglas, said the only thing he knew for certain about the case was that his office didn't agree with the most recent decision by Magistrate James Johnson, who also couldn't be reached.

Johnson released Fedornock, who is on parole, without bond after his arrest last week for failing to appear at the March hearing.

Douglas said the case, as described to him, was "the kind of case that drives everybody nuts."

"Most people, although you have to chase them forever, generally start paying before they have to go to jail," he said. "Now you're talking about going through the whole system and he's back not paying and what are we going to do with him?"

Steve Meyer, the county's chief adult probation officer, said he has a similar case.

"We kept locking him up," Meyer said. "Then he fell out of a tree and we went after his disability pay."

"We kept going back and forth, and the guy's still $15,000 in arrearage."

Meyer said putting delinquent parents in jail doesn't mean they don't still have to pay child support. What to do? "Do we keep them on probation forever?"

Fedornock couldn't be reached, but his mother, Corliss Fedornock, said the case is complicated and she never has figured out how the system determines what's current and what's past support.

Without Dumas available, no one at the county level could explain it either.

Trips to the offices of Dumas, Douglas, the probation department and the child support payment office came up short.

But whatever the amount, Corliss Fedornock thinks the case should have been handled differently from the start.

"I'm not saying he shouldn't pay," she said. "He should."

Fedornock, like her former daughter-in-law, faults the system.

"The lawyers don't look into it," she said. "The court-appointed person comes into it once or twice. Do they really look into it? I doubt it."

Children's advocates known as court-appointed special advocates or guardians ad litem are often appointed to such cases.

For her part, Schwanke, a purchasing agent for a wire manufacturer, said she's had enough.

"I've had to call my daughter in from the front porch where she's waited for him until after dark."

When Fedornock went to prison, she thought she was through feeling she was being laughed at by the system.

"I thought somebody listened to me and gave me some justice," she said.

But she said she feels she's back at the bottom again.

"I'm not a money-hungry person," she said. "My daughter's 13. To me the money means if she wants to go to a dance, we can buy her a nice dress."

With her daughter beginning to lose interest in her father, Schwanke said she thinks further struggles to collect child support are useless.

"They know they can get away with it. They know they can beat the system."