Feb. 5, 2003
By PHYLLIS J. ZORN
Hays Daily News
DES MOINES, Iowa — A Schoenchen man who federal prosecutors said came here two years ago to avoid paying child support was sentenced in federal court here Monday to 15 months in prison for not paying his ex-wife $87,181.
It is the second prison sentence former university mathematics professor Otho Leonard Rater, 60, will serve for nonsupport of the seven children born during his 23-year marriage to Maja Rater, who lives in Casey, Iowa. He earlier served 14 months of a five-year state prison sentence before being paroled.
The case has garnered a lot of attention in Iowa, where Maja Rater has waged a 20-year crusade for better collection of child support. In Iowa, nearly $1 billion in child support remains unpaid.
The Raters' children now range in age from 19 to 37, Maja Rater said today.
She said after Otho Rater was paroled from state prison in 1999, he paid some child support but not the full amount of the court's order. The last check came in April 2001, she said.
She said she complained to the Iowa attorney general about the state's apparently unwillingness to look for Otho Rater, who apparently had fled the state. Authorities then apparently traced him to Schoenchen.
He was arrested in late June and convicted in November.
Jim Robinson, chief of child support collection for the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, said the system used to bring Otho Rater to court works well, but there aren't many cases where federal law is used.
“The technique used in Iowa, the use of federal marshals and federal prosecutors, works well with people who flee the state with the intent of avoiding paying child support. It's a wonderful system. I wish the federal government would put a higher priority on that. There are just not enough federal prosecutors to get all of them prosecuted,” Robinson said.
He said about $500 million in child support is unpaid in Kansas, down from about $750 million about three years ago.
That figure represents only the 145,000 cases being overseen by SRS, Robinson said, adding it's roughly half of the child support cases in Kansas.
“The total amount in Kansas is going to be significantly higher. Typically the cases in our files are the ones where they are having trouble getting it paid,” he said.
Robinson said people often turn to SRS for help when the unpaid child support has built up and the problem is more difficult to deal with then.
“By the time we get the case at SRS, the average arrearage is about a year and a half. It's a fairly significant problem by the time we pick up a case. If people would ask for help when the first payment is missed, or within the first six months, it would be better,” Robinson said.
Kansas collects about 53 percent of the current child support owed, Robinson said.
A Hays lawyer likewise commented that the federal law used in Rater's case works well. That law is easier to prosecute than state law, John Bird said.
“I think locally we're in better shape than a lot of areas. I think our court trustee is doing a good job of enforcing child support orders. But there are some types of cases where the court trustees really can't do as good a job. Those are the scofflaws who deliberately avoid payment,” Bird said.
Ellis County prosecutes parents who don't pay child support, Bird notes.
“I have been pleased the Ellis County attorney has been willing to prosecute non-payers, but the Kansas law is a little more difficult to enforce because there has to be a showing of ‘neccessitous circumstances.' In other words, it's not enough to show that they owed the child support and didn't pay it. You have to show that the child is suffering as a result of the nonpayment,” Bird said.