Boston ? The man who currently is No. 1 on Massachusetts’ list of deadbeat dads has been arrested in Kansas and is likely to be sent back to face criminal charges, authorities said.

Robert C. Payne Jr., who allegedly owes $195,000 in unpaid child-support payments to his two children in Salem, was arrested Friday in Carbondale, Kan., a small town south of Topeka. He was apparently living with a woman in the apartment where he was arrested, Carbondale Police Chief Mark Kenneson said.

Payne, 47, formerly of Salem and Andover, was being held at the Osage County Jail in lieu of $15,000 bail and was scheduled to appear in court for an extradition hearing today.

He is likely to face charges in Massachusetts of felony nonpayment of child support and leaving the state without making arrangement to pay child support, a spokesman for the Essex District Attorney’s Office said. The maximum sentenced for each charge is 2 1/2 years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

He has allegedly failed to support his two children, now 15 and 13, since his divorce from Linda Payne-Violet in 1997.

“They have told me he is saying he doesn’t owe us anything,” Payne-Violet told the Salem News. “So I’m expecting him to fight against being brought back.”

Foiles said he was investigating Payne’s claims that the payments of $528 per week were mishandled by the Kansas Pay Center, a private business contracted by the state to deal with the collection and payment of child support.

Payne told police he worked as a repairman for a commercial and industrial repair contractor based in Somerville, N.J.

He was tracked down with the help of Nebraska State Police, who stopped him for speeding in February.

Payne topped a list of deadbeat dads released on Feb. 23. Since then, two other members of the list have been arrested.