Thursday, March 20, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Judge Gary Redmond also increased Williams' monthly child support from $220 to $1,000 after Williams failed to object to a motion by his ex-wife for the increase.
Redmon called the overdue payments "ridiculously high" and suggested the attorney for Williams' former wife should ask for interest and file a contempt motion against Williams.
Debra Gray had sought the $23,000 in back child support but did not ask for 12 percent interest, which Redmon said he would grant.
Williams earns $53,000 a year as a management analyst for the city of Las Vegas. He had been ordered 12 years ago to pay $110 a month for each of two children he and Gray had during their seven-year marriage.
Neither Williams nor his attorney appeared at Wednesday's hearing.
Gray's attorney, Gloria Navarro said she was surprised there was no response to the motion and said she was disappointed a lawmaker would act like the "classic dead-beat dad and run away from responsibility."
As a legislator, Williams votes on the state's laws governing child support. In 1987 and 1989, he voted on revising the child support laws. Such laws are being considered in the current Legislature.
In the 1989 session, Williams tried to keep alive a bill opposed by women's groups who said the bill was so ambiguous it could mean fathers pay less child support.
The lawmaker said the predominately female witnesses blamed all the problems of society, except the national debt, on men not paying enough child support. "None of the women, I guess, initiated any of the breakups," he said in 1989.
Williams' legislative salary is being garnisheed $110 every two weeks for some of the payments due his 17-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter.
Navarro was uncertain whether she would file a contempt motion asking for sanctions against Williams, as Redmon suggested, "because we want to try and settle this thing quickly."
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