Bring receipts
The mother of White’s daughter shared images from Minnesota’s online child support portal showing White owes her $100,086.82, having made just one payment this year—$523.91, earlier this month.
His debt appears to have slightly increased: A receipt for a $740.04 payment the day before White’s 2022 congressional primary shows a balance of $99,058.96.
White appears to have racked up much of the child support debt when he failed to adjust payments on his nearly $133,000 monthly salary while playing basketball with the Houston Rockets more than a decade ago.
White denied the woman’s claims, telling The Daily Beast, “I’m current on child support payments” in her case, as well as in a case with a second woman in which White was found in contempt in April.
White claimed that court records show he actually overpaid child support, but did not provide those records. Court filings in Hennepin County show that White’s “overpayments” likely relate to additional 20 percent “purge payments” the court added to his monthly obligations since 2018 in lieu of jail time for nonpayment. In September 2022, the court found that White had indeed overpaid those “purge payments,” but even then, the court stated that in six months he would have to continue paying 120 percent of his monthly obligation until the arrears were paid off.
White argued that this month’s $523.91 payment was just fulfilling his total obligation and that he’d made additional payments. But he did not provide evidence for that claim.
The mother of his daughter disputed White’s assertion that he is “current.” She provided statements showing that prior to this month’s installment, White’s most recent payment came last August, at $738.76. He paid her a total of about $8,200 that year, the statements show.
Playing defense
The same year White overpaid his purge payments, his congressional campaign was splurging on apparently personal expenses—including a Miami strip club, posh hotels, and numerous clothing retailers.
Last week, a campaign finance complaint accused White of “outrageous” illegal spending. The complaint cited around $157,000 in suspicious payments, which in addition to the seemingly personal expenses include mysterious wire transfers, cash withdrawals, and checks reported as paid to the campaign, which White now tells The Daily Beast were for “very, very common, commonly used vendors in the political industry.”
The mother said the only money she has recently seen from White came out of his seasonal paychecks from the Big3, a professional three-on-three basketball league. White, she said, has also paid lump sums under the threat of jail.
“I just find it really interesting that he can come up with money like that, when you’re about to get arrested magically you make money appear,” the woman said.
The woman also said White was not involved in their daughter’s life, claiming he recently missed her eighth-grade graduation, showing up an hour late.
“Now he’s out there talking about family values,” she told The Daily Beast, of White’s Republican run for Senate.
Fake out
White’s personal financial disclosure for his 2022 congressional bid listed just two liabilities, described as “child support” to two different women, each valued between $10,000 and $15,000. House ethics rules do not require disclosure of child support received, but appear silent on debts. At the time, White owed as much as ten times that amount to at least one of the mothers. The other woman did not respond to The Daily Beast.
Kedrick Payne, vice president and senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center—the transparency advocacy group that filed the complaint against White last week—said that if White misrepresented his child support on his personal financial disclosure, “you’re dealing with potential civil and criminal penalties for filing a report with false information.” (One of the federal criminal charges against former Rep. George Santos (R-NY).)
White has yet to file a personal financial disclosure for his Senate bid, as he was required to do by this spring.
The Minnesota GOP endorsed White last month in a landslide decision that nonetheless came with reservations, including concerns about personal debt. Reached for comment, Minnesota GOP chair David Hann said he couldn’t talk and hung up. He did not respond to a follow-up text.
White did not respond to detailed questions texted to him.
“I don’t think The Daily Beast is credible,” he said when reached by phone, before hanging up.
