Officials Say Top ‘Deadbeat Parent’ Held : Child support: Former Camarillo resident who owes almost $240,000 in back payments is arrested in Colorado, authorities report.

A former Camarillo man who owes nearly $240,000 in back child-support payments and was dubbed Ventura County’s top-ranked “deadbeat parent” by the district attorney’s office was arrested Tuesday near Denver, authorities said.

Larry Lee Roberts, 46, a father of four, had been eluding authorities since 1985, when the case was opened, authorities said. A warrant was issued for his arrest in 1987. Investigators from the district attorney’s Child Support Division tracked Roberts through Arizona and Nevada before taking him into custody in Colorado.

“We had no other alternative but to incarcerate this man,” said Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury. “He’s had his time in the sun. He’s toured the country. . . . and it’s time to pay the piper.” Roberts owes $237,261 in back child-support payments.

Working with investigators from the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, Ventura County district attorney’s officials secured a warrant for Roberts’ arrest and flew on a plane to Denver. Authorities found him in a car and arrested him without incident, Bradbury said.

Roberts, whose former wife and children now live in Thousand Oaks, was being held in a Denver jail with bail set at $150,000, authorities said. While in Nevada, he worked as a card player in a Las Vegas casino. Authorities in Colorado are still working to determine how he supported himself while in that state.

Roberts and his ex-wife, Maria Roberts, divorced in 1982, she said. She said he has worked as a military intelligence officer, a police officer in Kern County and, during most of their marriage, as a finance manager for an auto dealership.

“It’s kind of a bittersweet victory,” Maria Roberts said. “I’m saddened it had to come to this.”

Despite the arrest, she expressed little hope of getting any of the money. The couple’s children range in age from 14 to 19.

If Roberts waives his right to an extradition hearing, he will be returned immediately to Ventura County, Bradbury said. But if he does not, Bradbury said, an extradition hearing must be held, which generally takes two to three months.

Once Roberts is returned to the county, Bradbury said he expects to charge him with felony failure to provide, which carries a maximum sentence of up to one year.

Roberts’ arrest brings to six the number of parents on the district attorney’s office’s “most wanted poster” who have been arrested--half the total. Of the remaining six, investigators have a firm lead on the whereabouts of one man, said Stan Trom, director of the child support division.

The 12 parents identified on the poster represent the worst offenders, authorities said.

Bradbury and Trom said the vast majority of their cases--about 95%--are resolved with civil litigation, and there is usually no need to file criminal charges against the parent.

“Our goal is to get people to support their kids,” Bradbury said. “Not to put them in jail.” He said that of the 42,000 open child-support cases in his office, about 10,000 are parents who pay support, in part or in full. Another 15,000 are avoiding payment, or on the run and are pursued by the Child Support Division. The remaining 7,000 pay sporadically.

Trom said his division expects to collect nearly $30 million in back child-support payments this calender year. “That’s a lot of money,” he said. “And that’s a shame because it shows the extent of the problem.”