Thursday, March 20, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas, said today he's going to fight a court order that he must pay $23,000 in back child support to the wife he divorced 13 years ago.
"I'm very sorry it has come to this," Williams said, referring to the court battle. The problem arose, he said, when he refused to rekindle his relationship with his ex-wife, Debra Gray, in 1994 and he remarried.
Gray, who lives in Oakland, Calif., with their two children, 17-year-old Wesley and 15-year-old Briar, filed the court action and says she's forced to auction off her home. She says Williams was ordered to pay $110 a month for each of their children after the couple ended their seven-year marriage.
Neither Williams nor his lawyer, David Phillips, showed up at the hearing before Family Court Judge Gary Redmon this week in Las Vegas. Redmon ordered Williams to pony up the $23,000 in back child support payments and increased his monthly support payments from $220 to $1,000.
Redmon also suggested Gray and her lawyer file for interest on the debt and also for sanctions against Williams.
Phillips said he would file a motion today asking for re-consideration or to set aside Redmon's decision. He said Williams never knew about Wednesday's hearing. And Phillips said he was in a hearing on a capital murder case and when he got to Redmon's court, "the doors were locked."
"Wendell has always taken care of his kids," Phillips said. "He met his obligations. But like a lot of guys he makes his payments and didn't keep proof." He said he had met with Gray's attorney, Gloria Navarro, last week and they were trying to reach a settlement.
Gray says the assemblyman, who earns $53,000 a year as a management analyst for the city of Las Vegas, made only four payments after their divorce and stopped the checks in January 1985. But Williams said his son Wesley lived with him in Las Vegas from the sixth grade through his sophomore year in high school while his daughter lived in Oakland.
There was never any animosity between the couple, Williams said. When he visited his children in Oakland, he stayed at the home of his ex-wife. When she came to Las Vegas, she stayed at his home and he moved in with a friend.
The cordial relationship went sour in 1994, he said, when she tried to get back together. Williams told her he was committed to his soon-to-be second wife. It was then she started to threaten him, he said.
He said he has made some payments, including $300 he sent her at Christmas. Williams contends she has a $250,000 home that she's auctioning off and she's a teacher but refuses to work.
Williams says he lives in a $41,000 home in Las Vegas. But he also owns another house.
It's unfair, he said, to assert he has never done anything for his two children. "Anybody who knows me, knows that I, as a single parent, took care of my kids," Williams said.
Gray remarried but then divorced. She later visited Las Vegas and Williams said he went out on Christmas Day and found her a job. But she never followed up and moved back to Oakland.
Immediately after Williams remarried, Gray demanded the son be returned to Oakland. And Gray refused to allow his daughter to attend Williams' wedding to his current wife, he said.
Williams also said that in the divorce of Gray from her second husband, she testified in court that the second husband took the money Williams sent her for support of the children.
"Here, 14 years later, she determines I haven't done anything for her. It's very unfortunate," Williams said.
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