- Massachusetts Department of Revenue
Monday, March 2, 2009
S. J. Port
portsj@dor.state.ma.us
617-626-2377
Local law enforcement authorities in Sarasota County, Florida and Hillsborough, New Hampshire holding two for criminal failure to pay child support; combined they owe $385,167
Department of Revenue Commissioner Navjeet K. Bal announced today that following the Department of Revenue's release of its 2009 Top Ten Most Wanted List last week, authorities in Sarasota County, Florida and Hillsborough, New Hampshire are holding in custody the top two non-custodial parents on that list for failure to pay child support.
On March 2, authorities in Venice, Florida arrested Christopher John Lagos, who is first on the Massachusetts Department of Revenue Child Support Enforcement Division's Ten Most Wanted List. Sarasota County Sheriff's Office Deputies arrested him at a home in Venice on a criminal warrant for non support. Lagos has waived his extradition rights and will be returned to Massachusetts by State Police within the next ten days.
Lagos has two child support cases, one with an order for $88 per week from the Worcester Probate & Family Court and the other with an order for $100 per week from the Plymouth Probate & Family Court. Lagos has not made any support payments in more than six years and owes an aggregate of $196,434 in child support. He fled to Florida after being found in contempt of court in Massachusetts.
Hillsborough, New Hampshire officials identified Eric Alphe Grenier, who is second on the 2009 Ten Most Wanted List. Mr. Grenier is currently being held in the Hillsborough County Jail, following a conviction on assault charges. Local officials saw the Ten Most Wanted poster release and contacted Massachusetts , and by Friday, February 27, DOR had confirmed that he was one of the Ten Most Wanted. He will be held in the New Hampshire jail until he has served the remainder of the sentence for assault, at which point Massachusetts State Police will return him to the Commonwealth; he is likely to be returned to Massachusetts by mid-summer 2009.
Grenier was ordered to pay $136 per week by the Middlesex Probate & Family Court in 1995. In the thirteen years the order has been in effect, he has a made a total of 16 payments; an average of slightly more than one payment per year.
Both Lagos and Grenier face criminal non payment of child support charges under M.G.L. c. 273, s. 1. Combined the two men owe $385,167 in child support . Their capture comes less than a week
after the release of DOR's 15 th edition of the Ten Most Wanted poster for failure to pay child support.
Each parent on the Ten Most Wanted list has left the Commonwealth and now faces criminal charges carrying sentences of up to10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Arrest warrants have been issued and the names of each entered in the National Criminal Information Center database.
Those who have information on the whereabouts of the remaining 8 individuals should call the Ten Most Wanted Tip-line at 1-888-WANTEDS.
Over the past 17 years, DOR's Child Support Enforcement unit on 14 previous posters has displayed the faces of 122 non-custodial parents whose whereabouts were unknown and who were far behind on their support payments. Of those 122 parents, 104 have been located and about $4.5 million collected in back child support.
The previous poster, issued in September 2007, resulted in the location of seven delinquent parents and the collection of $123,000. Two others on the poster are overseas but outside the jurisdiction of child support authorities.
