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State Seeking 5-Year Sentence For Deadbeat Dad

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Reporter Mark Douglas confronts a man the courts say owes $165,000 in child support plus interest accumulated since 1992.

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By MARK  DOUGLAS | News Channel 8

Published: February 4, 2009

Updated: 02/04/2009 11:38 am

ST. PETERSBURG - A prosecutor said this morning she is seeking the maximum penalty — five years in prison — for David William Earley, who is a quarter million dollars behind in child support and spent the past 18 months as a fugitive.

Earley has been in jail since his arrest Jan. 19 in Pasco County.

His private lawyer, David Parry, hired to replace a public defender, said Earley is broke and unemployed. Parry asked the judge to reduce Earley's bond this morning.

Circuit Judge Frank Quesada denied the request and ordered Earley to remain in jail without bond. The judge cited Earley's 19-year history of nonpayment and his decision to go "on the lam" to avoid responsibility for his debt.

"You haven't even paid lip service to resolve these issues," Quesada said.

When a News Channel 8 crew found Earley at his current wife's New Port Richey hair salon in December, Earley acknowledged he was felony fugitive but said even if deputies caught him his time in jail would amount to a "walk through."

But Quesada ordered him held without bond pending the outcome of today's hearing.

"Somehow," the judge told him today, "you have become the poster child."

State records show Earley's accumulated child support debt puts him in the top 1 percent of all deadbeat parents monitored by the Department of Revenue. He owes $165,000 plus interest that has been accumulating since 1992.

Earley's lawyer said he hopes to have a plan in place to resolve his client's legal issues at a pretrial hearing Feb. 25.

Earley owes the money to his ex-wife and four children. At the time of Earley's arrest in January, he was living with his current wife and two daughters on a homestead in Pasco County with a horse in the pasture and tractor in the yard.

Earley told a reporter he is broke and unable to pay any of the child support he owes for the four children from his first marriage.

Court records show Earley has seven contempt convictions for not paying child support and now faces up to five years in prison.

Reporter Mark Douglas can be reached at mdouglas@wfla.com or (727) 536-9603.

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