CHICAGO — A man has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for willfully failing to pay child support for two children in the Chicago area.
From 2009 to 2017, EVAN MUSIKANTOW willfully failed to pay more than $1 million of child support (including interest) that the Circuit Court of Cook County ordered him to pay following a divorce. During those years, Musikantow paid only $3,000 towards child support, with most of that money having been remitted involuntarily via interceptions of Musikantow’s tax refunds by the State of Illinois. A federal jury in Chicago last year convicted Musikantow, 60, of Scottsdale, Ariz., of the willful failure to pay court-ordered child support. On Oct. 1, 2026, U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp, Jr. sentenced Musikantow to two years in federal prison and ordered him to pay $1,092,561.80 in restitution.
The sentence was announced by Andrew S. Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Thomas Ethridge, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Region of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General. “Defendant ignored and otherwise dodged his duty to support his children despite the longstanding efforts of the Circuit Court of Cook County, the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, and the mother of the two children to get defendant to provide support,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Edward G. Kohler and Edward A. Liva, Jr. argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “Defendant committed this continuing offense over a period of many years, apparently motivated to abandon his children’s financial support to chase his own lavish lifestyle.”