A 22-year-old Nebraska man who married the 13-year-old girl he got pregnant is now facing criminal charges for illegally having sex with her.
Matthew Koso of Falls City could get 50 years in prison on a charge of first-degree sexual assault, even though he married the girl, who is now 14, with her parents’ blessing.
“The idea … is repugnant to me,” Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning told the Associated Press. “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.”
While Nebraska allows people as young as 17 to marry with parental consent, Kansas sets no minimum marriage age. Case law, though, sets the minimum age at 14 for boys and 12 for girls.
“It seems to me like they, as much as they could, made a responsible decision to try to cope with the problem,” Koso’s lawyer, Willis Yoesel, told AP.
“The families are all united in this effort,” he said. “I don’t know who is complaining. … What benefit is there to anybody in the prosecution of this young man?”
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