Just four days after he appeared on KDCE radio June 5 touting his volunteer work with Big Brothers Big Sisters, the state Human Services Department filed court papers to garnish child support payments from Española Mayor Joseph Maestas’ paycheck.
The move came on the heels of a state District Court judge order requiring Maestas to pay his ex-wife a $8,241 settlement for two years of unpaid child support for their 13-year-old son, according to court documents.
Maestas and Beatrice Navarette got married Valentine’s Day of 1992 in Las Vegas, Nev., according to court documents. They divorced six years later, and Navarette almost immediately moved to El Paso, Texas, taking their then-2-year-old boy with her.
Their legal battles over visitation rights and child support over the following five years left behind a trail of court documents several inches thick.
The two had stayed away from further litigation since 2003, when a District Court judge ordered Maestas to pay $1,099 a month in child support payments. Maestas at the time earned a salary of at least $85,000 as a Federal Highway Administration engineer.
State law requires a working parent who does not receive custody of a child after a divorce to make payments to the former spouse to help support the child. The payment amount varies according to both parents’ income, and payments are due monthly at least until the child turns 18 or graduates from high school.
Parents who fail to pay child support can face penalties including liens, wage garnishments, forfeiture of tax credits and refunds, inability to obtain or renew driving and professional licenses and citations for contempt of court — which can result in fines an imprisonment, according to state law.
Court documents show that, of these penalties, Maestas has only been assessed with wage withholding.
In 2006, Maestas was elected mayor and left his federal job that December. That left him with a $9,600-a-year mayor’s salary, and he allegedly stopped paying child support immediately afterward, according to court documents Navarette filed last year.
Maestas requested in August 2008 a court hearing to reduce his child support payments.
“My income was drastically reduced as of December 2006,” Maestas wrote in his motion. “I am requesting a re-calculation pursuant to the guidelines.”
Maestas has since found a full-time job. The federal Census Bureau hired him in April of this year as a community liaison, spokeswoman Veronica Reyes said.
Until the Census is completed in late 2010, Maestas will work “on establishing relationships with community leaders, to show the community the importance and safety of participating in the Census,” Reyes said.
Maestas is making a $67,613 annual salary, Assistant Regional Census Manager Russell Frum stated.
Maestas is married to federal appeals court judge Martha Vasquez. Federal law currently sets the annual salary for that position at $184,500.
Navarette responded twice to Maestas’ request in October 2008, saying he had not paid child support at all and later that he had not paid it in full during the past two years and requesting a court hearing.
Navarette declined to comment.
That led to a court-ordered agreement Feb. 26, 2009, that required Maestas to catch up with his unpaid child support payments and begin making $550 monthly payments. At Navarette’s request, Maestas was required to make those monthly payments through the Department’s Child Support Office, documents state.
The agreement also required Maestas to cover $1,450 for his son’s tutoring fees and half of his medical and dental expenses.
In 2003, the courts had put Maestas on a monthly payment plan to pay back more than $2,000 in past-due child support payments, documents show.
Janet Clow, Maestas’ lawyer, said the papers the Department filed last month were a formality required to enforce the February agreement.
She emphasized Maestas is now up-to-date on child support payments. Maestas did not return three calls for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Department spokeswoman Betina Gonzales McCracken said due to confidentiality laws, she could not say whether Maestas is current on his payments.
McCracken said the Department commonly files motions like in Maestas’ case when an ex-spouse asks the Department for help enforcing a court order — such as the February order against Maestas.
“Anyone can come and request assistance in handling a court order for child support,” McKracken said. “Often they reached an agreement through attorneys, in the private sector, and they now want assistance enforcing it in the public sector. They recognize it might be easier, because we have mechanisms to serve as a collection agency, for lack of a better word, by withholding wages.”
This story required a clarification: The story cited court documents stating Española Mayor Joseph Maestas had not paid child support at all the two years preceding October 2008. Maestas’ ex-wife filed two court documents with conflicting information. One, filed Oct. 3, 2008, states Maestas failed to pay child support at all since Dec. 16, 2006. The other, filed Oct. 23, 2008, states only that Maestas did not pay child support in full during that time period. Neither Maestas nor his ex-wife returned calls about this issue.