Scott Obst is a professional poker player.  This high roller is also a deadbeat dad... a deadbeat who ran to Las Vegas, trying to flee his responsibilities back here in Wisconsin.  I thought it would be fair to track down Obst the deadbeat and ask him what his deal is.

   Tracking someone down who is trying to hide is never easy... especially when you're trying to do it from thousands of miles away.  Fortunately I have a very god producer.  Ira can find just about anyone anywhere.  Give him enough time and he's going to find you.  Well Scott Obst was a test of his searching ability.  There is a felony arrest warrant out for Obst for failure to pay his child support.  This guy owes $115,000.  That doesn't happen by just missing a couple of payments.  If you're $100,000+ in the hole you have been making almost no effort to pay anything.

   Ira had a couple of ideas where Obst might be living and hanging out, but we had nothing real firm.  We got to Vegas at midday on a Monday.  Our first stop was a mail place where we had been tipped off that Obst might pick up his mail.  We had pictures of Obst that were taken at some poker tournaments.  So we knew what he looked like.  But we did not know what he would be driving or if he would show up at the postal place.  This place is called the Mail Zone.  It's like Mailboxes etc or any of these other places that sell postal and UPS supplies and rent PO Boxes. 

   We sat outside the Mail Zone for one hour.  Then two hours.  In the third hour as it was beginning to get dark, a silver Yukon pulled up.  A man got out with a young child.  It was Obst.  There was no mistaking it was him.  As our cameras rolled he went in, checked his mail and came back out.  The whole thing took about a minute and 40 seconds.  Fast!  But it was definitely him.  He left and we followed.  He headed down Las Vegas boulevard, the strip.  He headed toward another address that we had for a possible condo that we thought he might live in.  After about five minutes of following at some distance, we lost Obst.  We were disappointed, but relieved that he apparently didn't know that we were looking for him.

   We drove to the condo complex.  It's a fancy gated community, just yards from Las Vegas Boulevard. The guard let us in.  We drove to the specific address... no sign of Obst's truck.  As we drove the parking lot we noticed that there was an entrance to an underground parking structure.  We nervously pulled in.  As we rounded the corner, there it was.  His silver Yukon.  We circled it to get a better look.  As we doubled back, Obst came off the elevator and into the garage with his wife and young kids.  Now it was decision time.  Do we hop out and question him here, now? Or do we wait until he's not with his family?  The second option would be a real calculated risk.  We might never see him again.  He could leave town the next morning.  He could sense that something is wrong and not leave his condo for three days.  Or we could just miss each other indefinitely.  And here he was right in front of us.  To drive away was a real risk.

   All of these decision are made on the fly, in a split second.  There isn't even much time for conversation.  Ira and i are usually on the same page.  And we were here.  We decided to move on.  I just didn't think it was appropriate to confront Obst in front of his young children.  I didn't want there to be some ugly scene that would traumatize them.  They are innocent bystanders in all of this.  We drove back to the hotel.

   That night was restless for me.  Not much sleep.  My mind was racing.  I second guessed myself a thousand times about whether or not we made the right call.  What if we never saw Obst again?  I was sure that he had not gotten suspicious of us.  I didn't think he knew a TV crew from Milwaukee, Wisconsin was looking for him.  But I was nervous and anxious.  We had him right in front of us and decided to let him go.  I'm sure he got one more good night's sleep.

   The next morning we got up bright and early and headed to his condo.  The first news was good news.  His truck was parked there when we arrived.  We parked out of the way, kind of close to his truck.  We parked where we could see the elevator.  Then the waiting began. 7am, 8am, 9 am nothing.  Each time the elevator door opened we prepared to pounce. It was false alarm after false alarm. 10am still no sign of Obst.  We're beginning to wonder if he'll leave the condo today, or if he's even in there. 11am still nothing.   Finally shortly after 12 noon the elevator opened and Obst came wandering out.  He was dressed casually and walking quickly toward his truck.  We opened the car doors and walked up to him.

   "Hey Scott," I introduced myself.  he asked how I was doing and I told him that I wanted to talk to him about his son Andrew.

   "I don't want to talk to you," he told me as he turned and began to walk back toward the elevator.  I told him there was an arrest warrant out for him and asked him why he didn't pay regularly.  He claimed he did pay and said he didn't know there was an arrest warrant out for him.  Then he surprised us.  He took off running.  I mean he bolted.  Dude was like Carl Lewis at an Olympics Trial.  He was gone.  He ran the opposite direction of his truck.  He ran past the elevator.  And he kept on running right out of the parking structure.  We followed and he sprinted.  He ran into his condo.  He was gone.

   We turned all our info over to police and they are now looking for Obst, who surprise, surprise has gone missing again.  We'll keep you updated.