San Jose
– Some
”
deadbeat dads
”
spent Father’s Day under arrest thanks to a child support
enforcement operation conducted throughout the county last
weekend.
Fifty-nine dads and one mom were arrested by deputies with the
Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office Saturday and Sunday for failure
to pay child support. Called
”
Operation Deadbeat Dads,
”
the effort partnered the Sheriff’s office with the Department of
Family Support Services.
By Lori Stuenkel
San Jose – Some “deadbeat dads” spent Father’s Day under arrest thanks to a child support enforcement operation conducted throughout the county last weekend.
Fifty-nine dads and one mom were arrested by deputies with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office Saturday and Sunday for failure to pay child support. Called “Operation Deadbeat Dads,” the effort partnered the Sheriff’s office with the Department of Family Support Services.
“The department is trying to get people to pay, and without enforcement, it’s hard to get people to pay,” Sgt. Jim Lewis said Saturday.
Many of the dads arrested have been delinquent on their child support payments for years, said Capt. Lindley Zink, who headed the weekend sweep.
Deputies went after most of the “deadbeats” at home, where they were likely to be found between 6am and 4pm. Fifteen teams of two detectives each from the Sheriff’s San Jose headquarters, with 10 arrest warrants each, set out, including at least one team in Gilroy.
About 2pm Saturday, Deputies Frank Lopez and Andrea Sims pulled up in front of a single-story Milpitas home with a $75,000 warrant for a 30-year-old dad’s arrest. Like the other deputies participating in the operation, Lopez and Sims wore street clothes.
“Usually when you have a uniform, they tend to hide and not answer doors,” Lopez said. “But if you’re in plainclothes, they do answer the door.”
Some are also aware that a judge has issued a civil warrant against them.
The 30-year-old Milpitas resident did answer the door, and was not surprised when the deputies told him why they were there: His wages had already been garnished because of his failure to pay child support for his daughter, who was in the house with him on Saturday.
“He was trying to readjust his work days so he could go to the judge and start paying,” Lopez said. “But we get those kinds of stories a lot.”
The deputies waited while the man contacted his mother to come take care of his daughter, was handcuffed, and taken to county jail where he would be booked and held pending bail payment or a court date.
He was one of two arrests Lopez and Sims made that day. At one San Jose apartment building a man with a $125,000 warrant was no where to be found.
At another apartment building, a suspect’s sister told deputies her brother hadn’t been heard from since last year. During their last stop of the day, Lopez and Sims were looking for a 35-year-old wanted on a no-bail warrant, meaning he would be held in jail, and probably knew he was wanted. The front door to the man’s home was open and someone was inside, but the room was pitch black and the deputies could not identify the man to make an arrest. Unlike a criminal warrant, a civil warrant did not give them permission to enter. The names of those arrested also were not made available because they face civil charges.
Two arrests out of 10 warrants for the day was “good,” Sims said.
Deputies arrested 36 people on Saturday and another 24 on Sunday. Fifteen others were arrested the previous week.
“It was very successful,” said Capt. Lindley Zink, who headed the weekend sweep, in an interview Monday. “We were targeting between 20 and 25 (arrests) a day.”
In the process of rounding up the “deadbeats,” deputies also cleared 29 criminal warrants.
