A former highly paid businessman who owes his ex-wife almost $13,000 in back child support avoided being thrown back in jail last week.
Carroll Circuit Judge Francis M. Arnold on Tuesday rescinded a Nov. 27 warrant for the arrest of Michael G. Glover, who has yet to make a child-support payment.
Mr. Glover had agreed to begin making monthly payments of $726 beginning Sept. 1 as part of a deal with prosecutors made in July, when he pleaded guilty to the single criminal non-support charge against him.
In exchange for the guilty plea and the promise to pay, Judge Arnold suspended his three-year prison term and placed him on five years of probation. The only term of his probation was to make the support payments.
When prosecutors noted Mr. Glover's account to be more than three payments behind, they petitioned Judge Arnold to arrest the man and hold him without bail until a violation-of-probation hearing could be heard.
Mr. Glover was not arrested, and, in a letter to the judge Monday, he asked to be spared any more time behind bars.
"I hope you can work with me now and understand just how devastating the financial and emotional reversals that I have experienced during the past 1 1/2 years have been," he wrote. I had always supported and took good care of my children and had a fairly good life until two years ago.
"Now I have lost everything, my long-time job, my children, my second wife, my house and the job I had gotten last spring. Please don't cause me to lose this new job."
The judge decided to issue a summons instead.
Mr. Glover surrendered to Carroll sheriff's deputies on March 11 after being arrested near his suburban Philadelphia home nine days earlier.
He owes the money to Sheree Brown of Westminster, his ex-wife and mother of his three children. Mrs. Brown and Mr. Glover were married for 12 years, divorcing in 1985.
Since then, the two have battled in courtrooms, at each other's homes and over the telephone about their sons, ages 11 to 16, who have moved back and forth between the parents.
Mrs. Brown and her new husband staked out a suburban Philadelphia post office box rented by Mr. Glover and had him arrested in March on the non-support charge.
Mr. Glover had remarried -- he has since divorced again -- and moved from the Baltimore area to Phoenixville, Pa., with his sons.
Court records show he had an annual income as an executive of an auto parts firm of more than $70,000 as recently as 1989, but he said in March he never paid child support to Mrs. Brown for the period she cared for the children because she "harassed" him and his new family.
At the time of his arrest, he had paid a total of $450 in child support,
court records show. On the day he pleaded guilty, he gave Mrs. Brown a check for $1,000.
A date for his probation-violation hearing has not been set, but Assistant State's Attorney James F. Brewer said Friday that he will recommend that Mr. Glover be sent to jail unless he is current in his support payments.
On Jan. 1, he will owe more than $3,500 in current payments, Mr. Brewer said.
Another part of the plea bargain called for a $12,500 civil judgment to be issued against Mr. Glover. Terms of that judgment require him to remain current on all new support
payments, and, since he has yet to make a payment, a contempt of court hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 20.