A Houston man was arrested when seven deputy US Marshals showed up at his home with guns and took him to federal court because of a 29-year-old federal student loan.

At least, that's what the news reports say. In reality, the situation was far different.

Paul Aker, the borrower, wasn't arrested because of his student loans. He was arrested because he failed to show up for a court-ordered deposition in a 2006 lawsuit brought against him for failure to pay his federal student loan debt.

Under federal law you can't be thrown into jail for a student loan debt - but you can be arrested if you don't obey a court order.

Even worse, the judge can require you to reimburse the government for the costs of your arrest.

Today we'll talk about when happened to Paul Akers in the case, why he was arrested, and how he could have avoided this problem by paying attention.