THAT MARASCHINO CHERRY PIT BUSTED MY TOOTH CLAIM DID NOT WORK OUT TOO WELL

Nation's 'Most Wanted Deadbeat' dad on the run for 20 years sentenced for $559K in unpaid child support

By Emily Monacelli

Kalamazoo News
August 24, 2018

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A man who ran from a hefty child support bill for decades and became known as a "Most Wanted Deadbeat" has been sentenced to prison.

Joseph Stroup, 65, was sentenced in U.S. District Court this week to two years in prison and one year of supervised release.

Stroup also was ordered to pay $533,724 in restitution.

Stroup pleaded guilty in May to an indictment alleging failure to pay child support from 1998. Stroup, who was captured living in Canada, had amassed $559,000 in arrears when the case was unsealed in 2014. He lived in the country under an assumed name, Joop Cousteau.

Stroup and his wife divorced in 1989, leaving her to care for four children for which Stroup had an obligation to pay child support, according to court documents. Stroup then told a Van Buren County judge he was disabled and unemployed. The judge lowered payments for his four children from $100 per month to $14 per month.

Then, in 1996, according to the U.S. Office of Inspector General, Stroup sold a successful Internet business for more than $2 million. After the discovery, authorities said the order for Stroup to pay child support was modified to account for his unreported income.

Stroup, a fugitive for nearly 20 years, was named the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General's "Most Wanted Deadbeat." The second person on the "Deadbeat" list owes $250,000 -- less than half of what Stroup owes.

The Office of Inspector General may get involved in cases where the non-custodial parent doesn't pay child support for more than one year and doesn't live in the state where the child lives; where the non-custodial parent owes more than $5,000 and lives in a different state from the child; or when the non-custodial parent travels to another state or country to avoid paying support, according to the OIG.

Stroup was arrested Feb. 1 on an immigration warrant in Cochrane, Alberta, near Calgary. He was deported and arraigned Friday, Feb. 16 in federal court in Chicago.

Steven Warren, a special agent for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General at the Detroit field office, said Stroup's case was reopened in 2014, and he was able to locate Stroup in the Calgary area using newer technology that wasn't available 17 years earlier.

Warren said he gave the Canada Border Services Agency their leads, but hadn't heard anything back until November 2017.

That's when a restaurant owner contacted authorities saying Stroup -- who he knew as Cousteau -- had frequented his restaurant. The restaurant owner said Stroup had claimed to have damaged dental work on maraschino cherry pits at the owner's restaurant and demanded money.

"He was a big talker," Warren said of Stroup. "He liked to brag about things that he had done in his life."

The owner in turn started doing some online research and found Stroup's picture on the "Most Wanted Deadbeat" page on the Office of Inspector General's website.

The tip was "basically saying this guy comes into my restaurant on a regular basis. This is definitely the guy."

Warren said he next heard from Canadian authorities that Stroup had been arrested Feb. 1. He said Canadian authorities ran him thorugh law enforcement databases and found his active warrant in the United States, then deported him on the immigration violation.

Warren said authorities believe Stroup entered Canada using his real name and then assumed the identity. He said Stroup is believed to have been using the Cousteau name for at least a decade.