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Michigan Man Owes Half a Million Dollars in Child Support

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REUTERS/Morris Mac Matzen

Further to the news this morning about boomers not using condoms enough comes what could be Exhibit A in the case for giving the more mature, at least in years, some sex education.

Howard Veal, of Michigan, fathered 23 children with 14 women, including one baby a year for 10 years from 1988 to 1998, according to the Michigan attorney general. Problem is, Veal also racked up $533,000 on late child-support payments. So on Sept. 24, a local judge sentenced him to two to four years in prison, a much stricter penalty than the guidelines suggest. (More on Time.com: What Makes Us Moral).

“You are the poster child for irresponsibility,” Kent County Judge Dennis Leiber told Veal. “You’re an insult to every responsible father who sacrifices to provide for his children.”

According to the attorney general, Veal lives with the mother of four of his children and says he has been doing his best to support all his children on his unemployment checks. In the last seven years he has paid one of the women with whom he fathered two children about $88. The attorney general’s memo claims the woman he lives with has a newly built home and two cars, one of which is a Mercedes. (More on Time.com: Fathers of Contention).

The jail sentence is not without its critics, since incarcerated deadbeat dads have no more chance of paying child-support than employed or even semi-employed ones. Several critics also asked why the women had several children with Veal, if he had no history of supporting them. But the judge felt that  Mr. Veal’s case was so extreme, it deserved a greater punishment.