Thomas Lewis pleaded guilty in January to a felony charge of failing to pay more than $90,000 in child support.

The case remains the largest nonsupport case ever in Clay County.

Clay County District Court Judge Galen Vaa in March sentenced Lewis to two years in prison, an upward departure from state guidelines.

As per a plea agreement, Vaa stayed the prison sentence on the condition Lewis serve 90 days of probationary jail time.

Vaa said he would permit Lewis to do his jail stint in Pennsylvania, and Lewis was told to report to authorities there once he returned home.

Lewis was also ordered to make progress on paying his arrears, which stood at approximately $97,000.

Lewis did neither. And several weeks ago he was arrested in Arizona and sent back to Moorhead, where he admitted in court that he failed to present himself to officials in Pennsylvania to serve his 90 days.

Today, Lewis, 44, is in a Minnesota prison serving his two-year sentence. According to the Minnesota Department of Corrections, it is the longest prison term ever imposed in the state for nonpayment of child support.

Assistant Clay County Attorney Gregg Jensen said it is unlikely Lewis’ two grown children, now 20 and 23 years old, will ever see much of the support they are owed.

Once Lewis serves his time, there is nothing more Jensen can do to force payment on the arrears.

Jensen said the amount will likely be reduced to a civil judgment.

“It’s kind of a Catch-22,” Jensen said. “The whole purpose is to get them to pay. When you send someone to prison, you’ve failed on what the whole reason for doing this is.

“But on the other hand,” he said, “if someone sees a two-year sentence on a nonsupport case in the newspaper and goes, ‘Oh boy, I can go to prison for this?’ We may start getting less cases. That would be great.”

A decade-long battle

Lewis and his wife, Trish, were divorced in 1987. Child support payments were to start shortly after that but very little was ever paid.

Trish Lewis said she wishes things had turned out differently. But she said she’s satisfied with how everything was resolved.

“I would have preferred money in the pocket,” she said. “But since he (Thomas) is avoiding the responsibility, I think it’s proper and good that he’s serving time in prison. For whatever good it does.

“It might benefit him by giving him a chance to think,” she added, “but as far as benefiting his kids, it doesn’t do a whole lot.”

She said her son, Daniel, doesn’t want contact with his father. “I can only assume that he is probably disgusted with him and it hurts and he’s just trying to move on with his own life,” she said.

Lewis, who lives in Moorhead, said her daughter, Eva, has kept in touch with her father – when it was possible.

With both of her children, Trish Lewis said, the real issue hasn’t been money but the loss of a relationship with someone who could have played an important role in their lives.

Getting sent to prison for nonpayment of child support is a rarity in Minnesota.

According to the Minnesota Department of Corrections, a total of seven people, including Lewis, have been sent to state correctional facilities on that type of charge.

The first was in 1985 and that case, as well as in several of the others, additional charges factored into the picture besides child support.

The second longest sentence, aside from Lewis’s, was a 14-month stint imposed in 2001.

Trish Lewis said although she didn’t end up getting the support she was due, she’s glad she made the attempt.

“I had heard horror stories that the system didn’t work,” she said.

“For me,” she added, “the system has worked.

“With Clay County, the state of Minnesota and the other state’s I’ve had to work with, it’s been a very positive experience for me,” she said.