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Program Offers Help To Deadbeat Dad Facing Prison Time

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David Parry, the private attorney hired to defend him, said Earley is broke.

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By MARK  DOUGLAS | News Channel 8

Published: February 5, 2009

Everybody's talking about David William Earley.

His former wife calls him a deadbeat dad. A state prosecutor wants him behind bars. And now a local community organization said maybe Earley is really just dead broke.

If so, said Michael Bernstein of Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services, the New Port Richey man is in good company.

Earley, who may face prison for failure to pay a quarter-million dollars in child support and for hiding from probation officers, is like a lot of people helped by Jewish Family Services, Bernstein suggests.

They are financially strapped parents who no longer have custody of their children but still carry the responsibility of helping pay for their upbringing.

"We call them dead broke," said Bernstein, president and chief executive officer of Jewish Family Services. "We think a lot of people in the population are having personal problems."

After learning about Earley's predicament, Bernstein offered to help with the jobs program his organization offers noncustodial parents who have fallen behind on child support.

Started as a pilot project 10 years ago, the program has helped 13,776 parents in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Dade counties find work and catch up on their child support. More information is available at (813) 930-7523 or at the program's Web site.

The program was singled out as a model of success by former Vice President Al Gore when he was still in office.

Bernstein says the program generates nearly $5 in child support for every $1 spent helping make participants productive workers. The program offers substance abuse counseling, mental health treatment, job training and even car repairs or clothes.

"Life coaches" are at the center of the effort to get these parents back on track.

The program offers help to women as well as men. Women account for 11 percent of the noncustodial parents statewide who are monitored by the state Department of Revenue, mainly parents who are on some form of state assistance.

Hillsborough County, No. 4 on the list of Florida's most populous counties, has more noncustodial mothers on the state's list than any of the 67 counties, with 5,611. See more of the Florida breakdown on an interactive county-by-county map.

Most of Bernstein's clients come to him when a judge offers them an ultimatum — the jobs program or jail. He said about a third of the parents choose jail.

About 80 percent of those who do enroll in the program stay employed for at least six months, pay child support, and in some cases even re-unite with their families.

Bernstein said he believes he can turn Earley into another of his success stories.

"We feel we can if he's willing to be helped," Bernstein said.

It may already be too late.

Prosecutors have grown tired of Earley's 19-year record of broken promises and are seeking the maximum penalty of five years in prison for his violation of probation and failure to pay child support.

Wednesday morning, Pinellas Circuit Judge Frank Quesada denied Earley's request to be released from jail, where has been held since authorities caught up with him at a home in Hudson on Jan. 19.

No one in law enforcement had been actively searching for him at the time, but a manhunt by the Pasco Sheriff's Office and Florida Department of Corrections began soon after News Channel 8 found him and interviewed him for a report on Florida's deadbeat parents.

"Your failure to deal with these issues straight on, your going on the lam and dodging it — and somehow you have now ended up being the poster child for non support, felony nonsupport …that's not going to serve you well," Quesada told Earley at the Wednesday hearing.

Earley owes $165,000 in child support payments plus interest that has been accumulating since 1992, a total of some $250,000, a prosecutor said in court.

That puts him in the top 1 percent of all deadbeat parents in Florida.

Earley is now remarried, has two young daughters from his second marriage, and lives on a suburban homestead large enough to require a lawn tractor and accommodate a horse. The property is valued by the property appraiser at about $145,000.

David Parry, the private attorney hired to defend him, said Earley is broke, can't find work as a tile setter, and depends on his wife's income from a hair salon she independently owns.

Parry said Christina Lynn Earley is the sole owner of the couple's homestead, purchased in 2006, but later conceded he was mistaken when News Channel 8 pointed out David Earley's name also appears on the deed.

His former wife Sharon Earley said she would rather see the money Earley owes her than see him go to prison. She has been trying 19 years to collect court-ordered support payments to help her raise their four children, three of whom have grown to adulthood.

But despite the hope offered by Jewish Family Services, Sharon Earley doesn't think another chance will make her ex-husband change.

"He refuses to follow court orders and to support his children legally and morally."

Reporter Mark Douglas can be reached at (727) 536-9603.

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