Flavor Flav Beats Jail Rap by Paying $25K in Child Support
Yeah boyyyyeeee! Rapper Flavor Flav is no longer a public enemy, as the clock-wearing artist decided to pay up on child support just in time to avoid being hauled off to jail.
Flavor Flav, whose legal name is William Jonathan Drayton Jr., owed more than $111,000 in back child support to Mary Parker of Albany, N.Y., the mother of three of his children, the New York Daily News reports. Drayton was facing the likelihood of spending 180 days behind bars.
A family court in Albany had deemed Flavor Flav's missed child support payments a "willful violation" of his support agreement. In that agreement, Flavor Flav was to pay Parker $837.72 a week, according to the Daily News.
Considering Flavor Flav's $111,000 child-support debt, that works out to more than two and a half years of missed payments.
With jail time a distinct possibility, Flavor Flav arrived in court with a check for $25,000, the Daily News reports. Drayton also agreed to make additional payments of $1,200 a month to further reduce his debt.
"I do the best that I can with what I got and I try to make it work," Flavor Flav said in a statement to gossip website TMZ.
If that's true, it's not clear why Flavor Flav didn't earlier try to seek a modification of his child support order, which could have avoided much of this legal trouble.
In general, a court will modify a child support order if there's a significant change in circumstances -- for example, changes to a parent's income. (Read more in FindLaw's free Guide to Getting Child Support Payments.)
Flavor Flav showed up to his child support hearing sporting his signature oversized clock around his neck. Yet despite the giant timepiece, he was still 20 minutes late, the Daily News reports.
Related Resources:
- Flavor Flav Avoids Jail Time By Paying $25,000 To Mother Of His Three Children (HipHopDX)
- The FindLaw Guide to Getting Child Support Payments (FindLaw - Free Download)
- Child Support Modification Tips (FindLaw)
- Flavor Flav's Lawsuit: Flav's Chicken Bill Unpaid (FindLaw's Celebrity Justice)