PORTLAND, Maine — A former Maine man was sentenced Wednesday to five years probation and ordered to pay more than $71,000 in child support he owes a Portland woman.
James Christopher Blyler, 43, of Hanover, Pennsylvania, was sentenced by Judge D. Brock Hornby in U.S. District Court in Portland, according to a release from U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II.
Blyler was released on probation following a June 2 arrest, but arrested again in October for violating his probation, according to court documents.
In June, he owed more than $67,000 in back child support, but that amount has increased over the past five months, Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Clark said Thursday
On April 20, 2004, Blyler was ordered by a Maine district court to pay $165 weekly toward the support of his child until the child reached age 18 in 2017, according to the release.
Shortly after the order was issued, Blyler left Maine to live in other states including Texas, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
In May 2010, he pleaded guilty to failing to pay child support and was sentenced to three months in prison and one year of supervised release.
Hornby said Blyler had already been detained for five months and that the statutory purposes of criminal punishment include getting defendants to pay restitution and getting parents to pay child support, according to the release. He warned Blyler that failure to do so would violate his probation and return him to prison.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Maine Child Support, Division of Support Enforcement and Recovery.