Granted, this didn't happen Virginia, but it reminded me of a pretty powerful ad campaign to stop creeps like this guy.
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Posted on 07/26/2005 2:08:42 PM PDT by BenLurkin
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) A 22-year-old man faces criminal charges in Nebraska for having sex with an underage 13-year-old girl, although he legally married her in Kansas after she became pregnant.
The man's lawyer said the couple, with their families' support, ``made a responsible decision to try to cope with the problem.''
Matthew Koso, 22, was charged Monday with first-degree sexual assault, punishable by up to 50 years in prison. He was released on $7,500 bail pending an Aug. 17 preliminary hearing.
After the girl became pregnant, her mother gave permission in May for Koso to take the young woman to Kansas, which allows minors to get married with parental consent. The girl is now 14 and seven months pregnant.
``The idea ... is repugnant to me,'' said Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning. ``These people made the decision to send their ... 14-year-old daughter to Kansas to marry a pedophile.''
He said the marriage is valid, thanks to the ``ridiculous'' Kansas law, ``but it doesn't matter. I'm not going to stand by while a grown man ... has a relationship with a 13-year-old now 14-year-old girl.''
Bruning, who has said he will seek a second term in 2006, has aggressively prosecuted sex crimes against children since he was elected in 2002
The couple were married in May by a judge in Hiawatha, Kan., just across the state line from Falls City.
Nebraska allows people as young as 17 to marry if they have parental consent.
Kansas law, however, sets no minimum marriage age, although case law sets the minimum age at 14 for boys and 12 for girls. The marriage must be approved by both parents or guardian, or by a district court judge, said Whitney Watson, spokesman for Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. A judge also must approve if only one parent approves.
Koso's lawyer, Willis Yoesel, said the girl's mother and Koso's parents approved of the marriage. He said the girl's father has not lived with the family for some time.
``It seems to me like they, as much as they could, made a responsible decision to try to cope with the problem,'' Yoesel said.
``The families are all united in this effort,'' Yoesel said. ``I don't know who is complaining. ... What benefit is there to anybody in the prosecution of this young man?''
There was no comment from Koso, who does not have a listed telephone number.
Um, keeping a child molestor off the streets?
No jury in the history of the world is going to find the young man guilty.
The Prophet Mohammed (may the peace and blessings of Allaah the beneficient and merciful be upon him) married a 5 yr old, so why is this bad?
/s
Oddly in such cases, the male is always the age he is today. While the female is the age she was back when a crime is alledged.
This is bigger than a lot of people might think. If the marriage is upheld in Federal courts under full faith and credit, then gay marriages will have to be recognized over state lines. If not, then the poisonous gay marriage decisions will be held within the borders. This is worth watching.
No I could see a guilty verdict in Nebraska.
The jurors will be instructed on Nebraska law which evidently holds no exception for married couples.
I guess in Kansas it would be perfectly legal.
I guess he's being tried for the premarital sex, not postmarital.
I still doubt he'll be convicted, though.
To be blunt, I've seen some 13-year-old girls I *really* thought were a lot older. Early bloomers, a side effect of growth hormones, I dunno... just... damn. Good thing I'm chick repellant, or I'd'a been in trouble sometimes.
Put me on that jury and I bet I can convince them he is.
Of course, if it'd been my daughter, I'd be up on murder charges.
How long ago was it that 14 yo girls were married off? Here in the States?
I suppose they could have killed the baby, would that have been better?
I'm not sure 13 and 21 makes it any better.
No jury in the history of the world is going to find the young man guilty.
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One would think unless the DA can stack the jury with people like the poster above your post.
So9
Um, keeping a child molestor off the streets?
I don't know what is in the mind of an adult who wants to have sex with a child, but the culture seems to find it "O.K." Mary Kay Leturneau (sp?) is apparently marrying the father of her two youngest children who was 12 when they first became involved, and it is all perfectly legal. Very strange...
I'm familiar with a similar case, where a teenaged boy of legal age (just barely) served time for sexual assault, who then returned when both were of age and married the girl. They're just another couple now, and he's trying to get his name off the sexual offenders list. Should he get cut a break? The ages and age differences were similar to Romeo and Juliet.
We do have these early marriages in our frontier history. There should be some common sense applied here--
The sad thing is that if he'd have gotten her an abortion, there'd be no problem.
I would not worry about the gay marriage crossing lines -- based on this, at least.
As disgusting as this is to me, this is a valid marriage --- and used to not be uncommon even 50 years ago (remember Jerry Lee Lewis), and were common 100 years ago.
Why is it whenever I read of this sort of thing I imagine the wedding march being played on a banjo?
What's the big friggin' deal?! The girl's MOTHER gave Matthew permission to marry her daughter. Why is the court system even involved and why are FReepers chiming in with ad hominem attacks about sexual predator when it's not even relevant to the story?
Marginally, but we are not at trial yet. By the time we get to trial if this DA is stupid enough to prosecute, the male will be 25 and the female 13. You see how it will be? Then if convicted he will be a 29 year old male appealing his conviction of sex with his then 13 year old wife.
Granted, this didn't happen Virginia, but it reminded me of a pretty powerful ad campaign to stop creeps like this guy.
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That's some good parenting, mom.
The man committed a crime, period. What he did afterwards (marrying her) does not matter.
He committed a crime in Nebraska prior to the marriage. Neither the girls mother, nor his mother and father, can write him a note excusing him from having illicit sex with 13 year old girls. I'd say he's gonna get convicted.
The headline makes is sound as though the act was post-wedding when in fact the wedding is the result of an illegal relationship. Marriage after the fact does not nullify the illegality of the act.
Can you imagine the precedent that would be set by allowing pedophiles off the hook if they simply marry their victims?
The consenuality of the act has no bearing on the law as it relates to statutory rape. That is what distinguishes cases of statutory rape from forcible rape of a minor.
And what parent in their right mind sends their 13/14 year old daughter off to marry a man of 22? It's like they are rewarding his illegal behavior. "Well, heck, you got away with it at least once, so now u can just have her anytime you want."
Me - I think the concept of the shotgun wedding in cases like this should be replaced with a 'shotgun' induced family gathering of another sort.
Seems to me they need to add the "Ar" to Kansas.
Bruning is looking ahead, see
http://www.jonbruning.com/
"Future home of Jon Bruning.com and Jon Bruning Campaign"
but I think he'll lose on this in the court of public opinion.
My wife's grandfather married her grandmother when he was 28 and she was 15.
No one thought anything about it.
They were married until they died of old age.
That's some good parenting, mom.
NO KIDDING. setting a great precedent there! When we're trying to get kids to abstain from sex during their teen years, we're giving license for very young teenage promiscuity as long as it's with someone old enough to be their dad! yow..
I was once searching records at a court house in Alabama and was surprised how many 14 year olds had been issued marriage licenses.
It depends on what is being prosecuted. If he is trying to prosecute the guy for sleeping with his wife, in the absence of a Nebraska law with no exception for married people, he probably will not win if the jury has an ounce of common sense (it's not a California jury, so I'm optimistic).
However, if he is being prosecuted for impregnating her when he clearly was committing statutory rape, Daddy's goin' to jail!
I have seen 14-year-olds who look like they are 18.
Would some of the posters have been happier if the guy hadn't married the girl?
Until relatively recently, it was common for a woman to be married off once she had her period. 14 year old brides were VERY common. Don't let your 21st century suburban values blind you to this.
All of these posts and not one that questions the abortion industry's protection of predator adult males who impregnate young teenage gals then drop them off at an abortion mill.
I am not aware of single abortion factory that has been brought up on charges of protecting statutory rape.
I thought the SCOTUS cleared all this up...that now, anything goes....
Marrying your rapist is a Muslim tradition.
Let's not bring that crap over here.
Aisha's age just keeps going down. Next thing you'll hear he consummated the marriage in the womb.
I guess I'm really old-fashioned. Back in the day before women were given license to murder their off-spring so long as they hadn't had the good fortune to be born yet, the young man in question would be described as "doing the right thing" because he married the girl he impregnated.
Quite frankly I think Kansas law is perfectly fine on this point, complete with a 16 year old age of consent, exceptions for marriages involving younger spouses, and Romeo-and-Juliet provisions which do not extend the definition of statutory rape to relations between couples close enough in age. The rest of the country by trying to pretend that young women (in the full biological sense of women) are still children is seeking to criminalize normal human sexual behavior under the bogus claim of suppressing 'pedophilia'. (Last I checked pedophilia was a morbid fetishistic attraction to pre-pubescent children, not a normal sexual attraction to young sexually mature members of the opposite sex.)
Maybe the couple can flee to Kansas, where presumably there
would be no interest in extraditing him.
Of course, we could always revive laws against fornication and adultery in general.
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