Man admits he hasn’t paid child support in Harrison County for more than 8 years

The father of a child who lives in Harrison County has been ordered to pay more than $25,000 in back child support.

But Jimmy Allen Parish won’t go to prison.

The 35-year-old from Simpson County has failed to pay a total of $26,283.83 over an eight-year period, Attorney General Jim Hood said in a news release.

Circuit Judge Roger Clark ordered Parish to make restitution on Monday after he pleaded guilty to nonpayment of child support, Hood said.

At the Harrison County Courthouse in Biloxi, Clark also sentenced Parish to five years in prison and suspended prison time for five years of supervised probation.

Parish was arrested after indictment on Sept. 6, 2017. He had been free on a $2,500 bond until June, when he was accused of simple assault. He served time on the assault charge while in jail and was released to probation on Tuesday, the Harrison County jail docket shows.

“This man’s desertion to his child is a reminder why the work of our Child Desertion Unit is important to so many families in Mississippi,” Hood said in a news release.

“I thank Judge Clark for making this father pay what he owes to his child’s well-being.”

Special Assistant Attorney General Dana P. Sims of the AG’s Child Desertion Unit prosecuted the case.

The AG’s Office investigates what it calls the most egregious cases of nonpayment of child support when all other options have failed.

The amount Parish owes is believed to be the highest amount owed in prosecutions in Harrison County in about a year.

In September 2017, Circuit Judge Chris Schmidt ordered Abdalarahim Shadi Hasain, then 38, of Memphis to pay more than $23,000 he’d failed to pay for his Harrison County child over a 14-year period. Hasain was working as a barber in Memphis when he was arrested.

Schmidt ordered Hasain to pay up and to serve four years of a five-year prison sentence.

This story was originally published August 21, 2018 at 3:39 PM.