Mark Lucas is a Canton father who believes child support enforcement is tougher on men who owe back support, than it is for women who are behind in payments.
Lucas has had custody of his 6 year old son since 2012, but said his ex-wife has only given him $132 in support payments in the past 20 months.
Lucas said his ex-wife Shawn Lucas was ordered to make extremely small payments of just $40 a month, but is so far unwilling to meet the payment schedule.
Lucas claimed he's called Stark County Children Services dozens of times, but so far he believes the agency has been slow on enforcing the support order.
"The system is set-up against the men, it's set-up because the majority of people they go after are men," said Lucas.
"She hasn't paid anything anyway, it's just $40 a month, it's not like I'm going to go to court over this, I'll just let child support enforcement handle this."
But Lucas claims the county hasn't done enough on a support order that is $10 below the state child support minimum of $50 a month,
We tried reached his ex-wife by phone to get her side of the story. Family member Ken Adams explained that do to medical issues Shawn Lucas has been unable to work for nearly two years,
Adams said he would likely be responsible for making the back child support payments in this case, and claimed that at one time Mark Lucas actually owed some $1,200 in back support himself.
We contacted Stark County Children Services about this case, and it said would be looking the situation over the next week.
The deputy deputy director of child support enforcement told newsnet5.com enforcement is based on the ability of the parties involved to make payments, and their economic situation.
He said Lucas can ask for a re-evaluation on support payments at anytime, and admitted it's rare that a judge would issue a support order that is below the state minimum.
