BOSTON (AP) – A nuclear power plant specialist, who a judge believed carefully orchestrated his times of unemployment to try to avoid paying child support, was ordered Thursday to pay $119,000 to his former wife and two children.

The state Appeals Court affirmed a lower court ruling Thursday that Robert Croak Jr. must pay, despite his claims that his employment is unpredictable and he partly lived off premature IRA withdrawals, a settlement and an inheritance during the time the child support accrued.

Croak was paying $970 a week to his ex-wife, Lorraine Bergeron, and two children when, in 2000, he asked to have the amount reduced because he had become unemployed. His attorney, Dana Curhan said Croak, who then lived in Arlington, works to commission and decommission nuclear power plants and often is unemployed for long periods.

The child support originally was reduced, but in 2003 a judge ruled the man owed $119,000, based on nearly $450,000 he received between 2000 and 2003 in wages, premature IRA withdrawals, a settlement and an inheritance.

“The judge’s findings, taken together, suggest strongly the view that Croak may have foregone (or manipulated) employment opportunities and that the income reported by him may not reflect the income he was capable of earning,” the appeals ruling said.

The Appeals Court Thursday denied Croak’s appeal that the judge overstated his income by including the settlement, IRA and inheritance money.

Curhan said he understood the judge’s suspicions about his client’s unemployment, but that they were unfounded. “This happens a lot, and judges really can’t tell who’s faking and not faking,” he said. “(But) if you really look at it, that employment pattern has continued to this day.”

Bergeron’s lawyer, Corey Shaw, disagreed. “It’s basically a situation where he tried to play games, and he was ultimately caught,” Shaw said.