A 24-year-old Fort Smith man who has been on the hook for child support payments to the Arkansas OCSE since mid-December of last year for back pay involving tly children apparently decided the easiest way to enhance his income was to try and rob a bank Friday in Fort Smith.
Police say Quintavious Releford robbed the First National Bank branch on Grand Avenue of an unspecified sum of money Friday morning and was apprehended almost immediately after fleeing in his automobile to Martin Luther King Park on the cities north side.
Police say that Releford robbed the bank at 10:35 a.m. Friday and within minutes a suspect matching the description of the robber was located in the 1800 block of North Greenwood Avenue. Police were able to take Releford into custody without incidents and no injuries to either officers, victims, or the suspect occurred during the crime or arrest.
It appears Releford and the mother of his children may have been the subjects an Office of Child Support Enforcement lawsuit that resulted in a notification of the withholding of wages in February of this year. Both Releford and the mother of the children, identified in court paperwork only by their first initials, were ordered to remit $300 per month to the Office of Child Support Enforcement in Little Rock.
Releford was booked into the Sebastian County Adult Detention Center at 5:44 p.m. Friday afternoon and charged with one count of Aggravated Armed Robbery later that evening after interviews with local detectives. He remains jailed without bond awaiting a preliminary hearing and court date on March 21.
The only other arrest of Releford on record in Sebastian County occurred in 2019 when he was arrested on a warrant for contempt for willful disobedience and failure to pay fines.
