BOISE – Rusty D. Haile, 47, of Keens, Illinois, was sentenced in federal court in Boise today for felony willful failure to pay a court-ordered child support obligation, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced. Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill sentenced Haile to five years probation and ordered him to pay $119,700.44 in restitution, the amount of his outstanding child support obligation. Haile pled guilty on November 28, 2011.

According to the plea agreement, Haile owed $59,213.35 in back child support when he was charged in January 2006, after he left the United States to work in Bermuda. In 2000, an Alaska state court first ordered Haile to make monthly child support payments of $1,277.36 for his four minor children. After the children moved with their mother to Idaho in August 2000 and one of the children became an adult, an Ada County court reduced the monthly support payment to $1,129.91. Although he worked in several different states and sold assets or obtained employment severance of more than $46,000, Haile made few payments through 2003 and no voluntary payments between September 2003 and December 2005. Haile was arrested in March 2011 in Atlanta upon his return to the United States from Bermuda. Haile was held in federal custody for 44 days between his arrest and his initial appearance in federal court in Boise.

“Failing to pay court ordered child support places an unnecessary strain on the custodial parent, the children and those programs administered by the Department of Health and Human Services designed to assist those individuals. The Office of Inspector General will continue to aggressively pursue those individuals failing to pay their court ordered child support with the cooperation of the United States Attorney's Office,” said Ivan Negroni, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Child Support Recovery Act makes it unlawful to willfully fail to pay a court-ordered child support obligation for children living in a different state where the support obligation is more than $5,000 or has remained unpaid for more than a year. Violation of the Child Support Recovery Act is a felony where the unpaid support obligation is more than $10,000 or has remained unpaid for more than two years. The Act requires defendants to pay restitution equal to the full amount of the unpaid child support obligation as of the sentencing date. Accordingly, the Court ordered Haile to pay $119,700.44. Haile made payment of $30,000 to the Court in November, which will be credited toward his restitution amount.

“The Child Support Recovery Act provides an important tool for prosecuting those who willfully fail to pay child support,” said Olson. “As a result of today's sentencing, Mr. Haile is a convicted felon and must now follow a federal court order to make restitution for the minor children he failed to provide proper child support to for over a decade.”

The case was investigated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General.