Westchester officials are using a new weapon to get deadbeat dads to live up to their responsibilities – publicly shaming them by showing their photos in a newspaper.
“Pay Up Or Your Face Will Be Here Next,” warns the first advertisement, which asks the public’s support in finding the fugitive fathers.
The ad shows photos of four dads who allegedly skipped out on child support payments totaling $192,000.
“We’re ratcheting up the pressure on these deadbeats,” County Executive Andrew Spano said.
Westchester became the first county in the state to use newspaper ads to try to force deadbeat dads to pay up, he said. The first appears in today’s New York Post.
A Spano spokesman, Victoria Hochman, said the county chose The Post because many of the parents’ last known addresses were in the city.
Each of the four deadbeats shown in today’s ad owes at least $32,000, the county said. They include Alberto Almeida, 58, a father of one who allegedly skipped out owing more than $62,000. His missed a court-ordered payment in 2000 and his last known address was in The Bronx.
Another is Grigorios Rontogiannis, 42, formerly of Astoria, Queens, who already skipped out on more than $52,000 in support for his two kids.
“We have many ways of making them pay – suspending their driver’s licenses, garnishing their pay, even arresting them,” Spano said. “But we hope this latest method will shame them and others who see the ad into doing the right thing.”
The other two disgraced dads in the first ad are Joseph Picarelli, 46, and Carlos Loiza, 39.
Picarelli, who allegedly owes more than $43,000 for one child, was last known to be living in Dobbs Ferry.
Loiza owes more than $34,000 for his two kids and his last listed address is in Peekskill.
The ads ask the public’s help in finding the men. “Do you know where these deadbeat dads are? Their children don’t,” the ad says.
The county will look at the results of today’s ad and then determine where to take out more ads featuring other parents, Hochman said.
Names and other information about 12 offenders, including a mother who owes $68,000, have been posted on the county’s Web site.
There are no photos posted for three of the 12.
The site said all owe $5,000 or more for court-ordered payments. “All recent attempts to locate them have failed,” Spano said on the site. He said the county collected $58 million last year in child support, up $2 million from the year before.