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Ray Trump doesn't like the term "deadbeat dad," and he especially doesn't want it applied to him.
Arrested in August in Kosciusko County Prosecutor David Kolbe's highly publicized sweep of suspects for felony nonsupport, Trump sat in jail for almost three weeks because he couldn't afford the $1,000 bail.
The ironic twist to Trump's story is that he was paying support, both current and back support, at the time. The time in jail cost him his job, and - more irony - that of the son whose support he is accused of stinting.
"It's not right what they're doing to us," Trump said.
He readily admits he got behind in his support payments, a debt he is still paying off. However, he is now in a court-sponsored monitoring program and has the support payments taken out of his paychecks.
"It isn't like when I get a job I dodge 'em," he said. "Every time I get a job I notify 'em (about) where I'm working."
According to Jay Rigdon, Trump's court-appointed public defender, Trump missed one of his monitoring hearings last summer because he was ill. The prosecutor's office sent police out to bring Trump to court for contempt, and the parties worked out an agreement where he would pay $35 per week support and $10 per week toward his back support debt.
Rigdon said Trump had paid regularly for four weeks when he was brought in on criminal charges. "There's absolutely no excuse to prosecute this guy," Ridgon said.
Trump's son, who is 18, was living with Trump and his wife at the time of Trump's arrest. Because Trump was his son's only means of transportation to and from work, his son lost his job while Trump was in jail.
Rigdon filed a motion Sept. 23 to have the charges dismissed against Trump, and one week later Kolbe's office agreed to the dismissal "without prejudice," meaning the charges could be refiled later if Kolbe believed it was warranted.
"I think it was slightly unfair, so I dismissed the charges," Kolbe said Thursday. "It's a question of fairness, not of law. ... You don't give a person a carrot and then hit him in the back of the head."
Even though Trump's son is 18 (and has a child of his own), Rigdon said, support payments don't automatically stop unless certain criteria are met to prove the son is emancipated.
Trump said he was still required to pay support even when his son was living with him and even though his son's mother was willing to stop the whole process. (After Trump's arrest and the loss of his son's job, his son went to live with an uncle, not with his mother.)
If his son is declared emancipated, Trump said, "even if this support stops, I know I've got to pay the back support."
The charges may be dismissed, at least for now, but the experience has left Trump with a bitter aftertaste: From now on, he must always notify potential employers that he has been arrested for a felony offense.
"It will always be on his record that he was arrested for a felony, even if the case is dismissed," Rigdon said. "Especially in a community this size, people remember that Ray got picked up."
