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.
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.
ping
Who ratted him out?
As opposed to a non-underage 13-year-old girl?
A 22-year-old YOUNG man & a 14-year-old MATURE teenage girl? They're within age range of each other. That's not child molestation, it's consensual sex. He married her for cryin' out loud.
Actually, I would jail him in Kansas for making her pregnant, and then jail her mother for giving permission for the marriage.
I ran into something similar 15 years ago, when a widow needed my signiture and blood test for her 14 year old daughter to marry...when I asked the girl, turned out she hardly knew the guy, but the mom was marrying her off because she didn't want to care for the kid...so I called child welfare and put the kid into a foster home.
Child marriage is wrong. The girl is too immature to make that kind of decision. In pioneer days or days of severe poverty, it was sometimes the lesser of two evils (the alternative being starvation) but what is their excuse now?
Jail the bastard and throw away the key.
I'd assume the pregnancy did...
Sexual assault; first degree; penalty.
(1) Any person who subjects another person to sexual penetration (a) without consent of the victim, or (b) who knew or should have known that the victim was mentally or physically incapable of resisting or appraising the nature of his or her conduct, or (c) when the actor is nineteen years of age or older and the victim is less than sixteen years of age is guilty of sexual assault in the first degree.
She was 13, he was 21 when he impregnated her. He's guilty of a crime. Marrying her should and will weigh on the penalty phase I'm sure but having 21 year old men impregnating 13 year old children is against the law, as it damn well should be.
Marriage does NOT excuse statutory rape.
"Old enough to be her dad"? he was 21 she was 13, he would have had to have had a daughter at 8 years old!! Promiscuity, you cannot be promiscuous if you are now married. I thought we wanted to encourage marriage. Best here to just leave then alone. In ten years time he will be 32 and she will be 24 they could very well be happily married with lots of kids.
OR we can put the father in jail, she can be a welfare single mom and the child can grow up with out a father.
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