Deadbeat dad flees to Philippines leaving four kids without
support
Dale Brazao
Staff Reporter
His
10-year-old son was fighting cancer.
His 14-year-old daughter is a
special-needs child coping with all the challenges of
Down syndrome.
His 17-year-old daughter, once an A
student, is struggling at school and depressed.
His 19-year-old son
has substance abuse problems and is currently on a methadone
program.
Last fall, after an Ontario judge awarded his ex-wife
spousal and child support of nearly $4,000 a month, Hans Mills, an education
software expert with extensive work contacts in Southeast Asia, sent Donna Mills
an email telling her he had left Canada for good.
“The result of the
legal instrument which you recently designed and implemented is that there is no
possibility of a comfortable life or a (secure) retirement for me in Canada at
all,” Mills, 53, wrote in the email dated November 2, 2011. “Therefore I have
left the country to seek greener pastures elsewhere, and will never return. Well
done Einstein.”
“Good luck and goodbye.”
With that missive
sent from an unknown location, Mills joined the more than 120,000
parents in Ontario who are in arrears on spousal and child support
payments. Collectively, they owe more than $1.8 billion to ex-wives and
children.
This is a story about a marriage breakup, a protracted
legal battle and the decision of the ex-husband to flee Canada and avoid his
court-ordered duty.
The Star tracked Hans Mills to the
Philippines. From his hideaway on the outskirts of Manila, Mills says he knows
what he did is wrong. He blames a “broken” Family Court system that pushed him
to the brink of ruin for his decision to cut and run.
“I did a
terrible, awful thing, because I had no reasonable option,” Mills says of his
decision to flee and stop making spousal and child support payments. “I miss my
children terribly. I abandoned Canada, but not my children. My hope is that some
day I can reconcile with my children, but not in Canada . . . a morally bankrupt
state.
“The Philippines is about as far as I could go. If I had a
spaceship I’d be much further away.”
At the time he absconded, Hans
Mills was under court order to pay his ex-wife, Donna Mills, $2,235 per month
for the support of their children and $1,537 a month for spousal support. He
also had been hit with substantial retroactive payments and ordered to pay his
ex-wife’s legal costs.
His kids are “innocent bystanders who got
caught in the crossfire,” Mills says in his email to the Star. “It was not my
intention to hurt them.”
He is adamant about two things — he will
“never, ever, ever, ever” pay spousal support, and he will never return to
Canada.
That is bitter news for Donna Mills, who has spent the past
eight months urging Canadian authorities and Ontario’s
Family Responsibility Office (FRO) to find her ex-husband and
force him to comply with the court order.
The day after she received the
email, Donna Mills’ lawyer sent the Family Responsibility Office, which enforces
court orders for support, a fax urging his arrest, but Mills was already out of
the country.
“Financially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually,
I am approaching bankruptcy,” Donna Mills said in an email she sent the Star
asking for help in locating her ex. “If I go down, the kids go down, and I can’t
let that happen.”
The story is complicated by the house Donna Mills
and the children live in. The imposing home, on a large lot backing on Lake
Ontario near Hamilton, is valued at about $1.2 million, but has a $600,000
mortgage on it.
The couple split in 2005. A deal was finally brokered
after a two-day trial and on May 1, 2008, both parties signed the Minutes of
Settlement. Donna would have sole custody and stay in the house with the
children while Hans paid child support. Donna would pay Hans $175,000 to buy him
out of the matrimonial home.
In subsequent court pleadings, Donna
maintains she was “rushed and pressured and did not read” the documents before
she signed them. She said she did not understand she was signing away the right
to any future spousal support, even if her circumstances
changed.
“Donna got the million dollar lakefront mansion and full
custody of the children with child support, but no spousal support, in exchange
for the house,” Hans Mills writes. “Everyone at the time agreed that my spousal
support obligation had been met fully.”
He notes the deal also
provided Donna with a built-in revenue stream because the house contained a
separate apartment that was rented for nearly $2,000 a month.
Over
the next few years, a feud simmered between the once-happy couple. Three years
after their “Final Order,” all kinds of issues had arisen about the kids and
Donna’s inability to work, and a new trial was scheduled for the fall of
2011.
According to Donna Mills, her ex-husband took her to court
three times and at one point tried to foreclose on the house. With her bills
piling up, Donna Mills says she used this as an opportunity to ask a court to
grant her spousal support.
In June 2011, a judge issued a “Temporary
Order” for Hans to pay spousal support, also awarding her both retro payments
and court costs. Stung by the order, Hans left Canada before the new trial could
take place.
“I was effectively ordered to pay for my crucifixion.
Ouch. Plus I still had to pay my own lawyer,” he writes. “Having been buggered
once left me no appetite for a second serving, thank you very
much.”
So he sold his house, cashed in his pension, paid his bills,
and took off.
He left behind an ex-wife who says she is unable to work due to
onerous family responsibilities — looking after four kids, three of whom have
substantial medical needs, especially Steven, who has just finished two years of
cancer treatment.
“I am not receiving any financial support from my
former spouse,” Donna Mills says. “I don’t have life insurance or benefits. The
house is the only thing that I have left. My RSPs are quickly dwindling and
failure to sell the house in a timely fashion will lead to
foreclosure.”
In addition, Donna Mills says she had to borrow another
$122,000 through a line of credit on her mother’s house to buy out Hans. “I came
away from this with no money.”
Hans Mills now lives in Dasmarinas
City, about 50 kilometres south of Manila, with his new wife, Rosemarie
Espiritu, a former caregiver he met during his frequent business trips to
southeast Asia.
He would not submit to a personal interview but
agreed to answer written questions.
His furtive exit from Canada was
a “purely tactical response to an untenable situation.” A classic “fight or
flight” brought on by a spiteful ex-wife, an unjust Family Court system and the
FRO that descended on him like a pack of wolves, he says
He accuses
his ex of “using Steven’s disease as a weapon against me, which I find most
repugnant.” As far as he knows, Steven’s cancer has been conquered, or is in
check, and his eldest, Tom, is an adult, and no longer a dependent child of the
marriage.
“She is simply lazy and does not want to work,” Mills says
of his ex-wife, adding that the toughest decision of his life has left him
exiled. His mother and brother live here in Ontario, as do most of his
friends.
“I live in the Philippines for Heaven’s sake . . . this is
not a country club. I have to keep a loaded shotgun beside my bed at night in
case of attack, of which there have been several.”
He has not yet
found greener pastures “but I can see one from here.” In the Philippines, he is
beyond the reach of Canadian laws, he says, and the FRO is a “paper tiger” that
can do him no harm.
Donna Mills, 51, was once a teacher. She argues
her role as primary caregiver during her 22-year marriage forced her out of the
traditional work force. She once held down three jobs to make ends meet, but
caring for the children consumed all her time.
Besides the $800,000
debt she says she carries, she owes 2 ½ years in back taxes on the home. Her
only source of income is the $2,500 monthly she gets for her two youngest from
the Assistance for Children with Severe Disabilities branch of the Ministry of
Children and Youth Services.
Hans Mills says his ex-wife’s claims of
hardship are exaggerated and “designed to squeeze more cash out of me by
appearing pathetic and helpless.”
One thing is
certain.
When he left Canada last fall, Mills left behind a
10-year-old son who had just completed two years of cancer treatment.
Diagnosed with Wilms tumour, a cancer of the kidneys, at age 8,
Steven underwent surgery to remove a 1.4-kilogram tumour that entailed removal
of his left kidney and adrenal gland. The latest tests show him to be free of
cancer, but he will be tested every few months for the next
year.
Mills said she always knew her ex-husband would flee to the
Asian subcontinent where he had worked extensively during the past 15 years, and
where he met his future wife.
She implored the Family Responsibility
Office to try and stop him from leaving, asking that a lien be put on his house
in Grimsby, and to seize his passport, but the FRO did not move on those
requests. Mills, a Danish immigrant, has both a Canadian and European
passport.
Hans Mills was granted a probationary visa by the
Philippines government last December, with his common-law wife as his sponsor.
The two have since married.
According to the FRO, Hans Mills is more
than $28,000 in arrears and his debt to his family is growing at $3,772 a month,
plus interest.
“The unfortunate reality is that some parents simply
refuse to support their children, while others cannot afford to meet their
court-ordered obligations,” said Annette Phillips, director of communications
with the Community and Social Services ministry.
The FRO has
reciprocal agreements with all 50 U.S. states and some 30 countries, including
Fiji and the Cayman Islands, but none with the Philippines.
The
agency has a number of weapons at its disposal to force deadbeat parents into
compliance, including garnisheeing of bank accounts and income tax returns,
placing liens on properties and suspending driver’s licences and
passports.
In some cases, the FRO will resort to shaming the
deadbeats by posting their mug shots on a special
website called goodparentspay.com and asking the public to
inform on their whereabouts.
Donna Mills says she is not out for
revenge, but to make her ex honour his obligation to his
children.
“When we split up, Hans left everything. He never even
asked for a photo of the kids,” Mills said, showing off an array of cards from
the children he left behind. “It is grossly unfair what he has done to his
children. He has scarred them for life.”
Hans Mills, who has a BA in
economics from the University of Toronto, has held a number of sales and
marketing positions with e-learning companies. At the time of the breakup, Mills
averaged a yearly income of more than $100,000.
His LinkedIn
account posted on the Internet lists his current position as a partner in
Hannover Asia Inc., a Beijing-based company that is registered in Delaware. In
the email to the Star, Mills says he does not a have full-time job, but is doing
some consulting work for the local Filipino government.
Eight months
since he last heard from his dad, Mills’ son Steven was eager to open a package
that had just arrived from the Philippines in advance of his 11th birthday.
Steven’s face dropped and tears welled up in his eyes when he saw its contents:
dried banana chips, cassava chips, caramel popcorn and salted peanuts.
The birthday card accompanying the dry goods said: “Dear Steve,
I hope you have a wonderful birthday. Love from Dad.”
“Why would I
want this from my deadbeat dad?” the youngster said. “If he really cared, he’d
be here.”
