Former "Most Wanted Deadbeat Parent" Pleads Guilty to Being A Really Crappy Dad

Office of the Inspector General

Robert Sand, 50, didn't just become America's most deplorable father overnight, it took stubborn determination and dogged non-commitment to neglect and dodge his children for more than a decade -- while racking up a $1.2 million child-support bill.

Sand went the extra mile to be that horrible, and now faces four years behind bars after pleading guilty in federal court in Islip, N.Y. yesterday to two counts of traveling domestically and internationally in efforts to evade child-support payments.

"[T]he defendant has admitted to abandoning his responsibilities to the children he helped bring into this world, and to leaving the country to do so," Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of N.Y., said in a statement. "Neither court orders nor the familial bond meant anything to him as he fled to avoid his obligations."

He initially left his kids behind in New York and fled to Florida. Apparently that wasn't far enough, so he headed oversees to the Kingdom of Thailand to evade warrants issued for his arrest in 2000 and 2002 for outstanding child-support payments.

Without the stresses of having to be involved in the lives of his kids, Sand flexed his entrepreneurial muscles a bit and opened up his own business abroad. Sand's decade-long run as one of America's most dead-beat fathers came to an end in December when he was arrested during a trip from Thailand to the Philippines for not having proper identification.

Authorities deported him to Los Angeles -- where he was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals. Federal court issued a warrant for Sand's arrest in 2010 after he circumvented New York State-issued arrest warrants for years.

Prior to his arrest, spent most of the 2012 as the long-running king of dead-beat dads on the Office of the Inspector General's "Most Wanted Deadbeat Parents," list. Sand is scheduled for sentencing in May.