Man must pay $2M in child support after hiding in Fla.
Indiana man passed himself off as someone else for quarter century.
A man who for a quarter century passed himself off in Florida as someone else must pay $2 million in back child support, an Indiana court official has ruled.
In July 2016, the Pasco County Sheriff ’s Office arrested Richard J. Hoagland, then 63, at his home in Zephyrhills, about 30 miles northeast of Tampa. He was charged with fraudulent use of personal identification, a felony.
According to a Pasco County sheriff ’s affidavit, Hoagland admitted he’d walked out on his wife and children in the Indianapolis suburb of Fishers because “he did not want to face another divorce” and wanted to disappear.
Hoagland had been vague to authorities about how he ended up in Port St. Lucie, where he rented a room from a man named Edward Symansky. The man’s son, Terry Symansky, a commercial fisherman in Broward County, had drowned in 1991 at age 33. He left no wife or chil- dren. Except for his father, all his immediate relatives lived in Ohio. Deputies say Hoagland discovered a copy of the son’s Florida death certificate and used it to get the birth cer- tificate from Ohio, got an Alabama driver’s license as Terry Symansky and got a Florida license in 1994. Edward Symansky died at 89 in 2015. Deputies said Hoagland — as Terry Symansky — met and married Mary Hossler in Pasco County and the two had a son. His wife would tell detec- tives that he told her he was a home inspector. Hoag- land said the couple lived on money Hossler inher- ited as well as income from rental In 2013, properties. the nephew of the been website real doing Terry Ancestry.com research Symansky on and had the was had obtained surprised a to marriage find a man certificate and married in his in uncle’s 1995, despite name Terry Symansky having been dead since 1991. When deputies went to Mary Hossler, she looked around and found documents in her attic revealing her husband’s past life. Back in Indiana were an ex-first wife and a second wife. Indiana had declared the missing Hoagland dead in 2001. In May 2017, a federal judge in Tampa sentenced Hoag- land to two years after he pleaded guilty to identity theft. Prison records show he was released April 16. According to The India- napolis Star, his son, Doug- las Hoagland, now 31, was in court for the May 14 ruling , where Hamilton County judicial officer Jonathan Brown ordered Hoagland pay $1.86 million for two decades of missed payments and 18 percent annual interest. Douglas was there along with his brother, Matthew, and mother, Linda Iseler. Douglas had been 6, and Matthew 9, when they last saw their father. Douglas didn’t see him again until, as an inmate at an Indiana prison, he saw his father’s jail mugshot. Douglas Hoagland had been serving an eight-year sentence for being a habitual drug offender. A lawyer for Iseler told The Star the family might never see the money, since the woman Hoagland married in Florida, as Terry Symansky, also is suing him for divorce. The Palm Beach Post was not able to immediately reach the attorney, Thomas Markle. Douglas Hoagland told The Star he has no interest in reconnecting with his father, saying, “I don’t think I need to stir up old demons.”