I am happy to answer your questions and take no offense that they were asked. Actually, I find the expression of other points of view to be very interesting. I certainly did not mean to stir up a hornet's nest but was merely relating my own experience. Yes, I'm sure my daughter consented but the fact is that at the time, the age of consent in this state was 16, not 14. This was a relationship of several months' duration and had been nothing but trouble from the git-go. One night, my daughter was out riding around in a car with the young man and several friends when the police pulled them over. They were all arrested for possession of marijuana because none of them would admit to who actually owned it. I let her spend the weekend at the Department of Juvenile Justice facility in the hopes that it would teach her a lesson.
After the young man was released from the county lockup, he broke into the empty house next to us and squatted there for several weeks. He and my daughter were found there by the police one Saturday morning and he left my daughter there alone to deal with the consequences. What a man. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I asked the detective on the case what it would take to get an order of protection and he told me that the most efficient thing to do would be to swear out a warrant for his arrest for statutory rape. I was at the police station before the close of business that day.
My query as to whether he has been released was facetious, I know that he has been because he stalks my daughter to this day. She is now 27, married and a mom of two. She and I both consider him to be dangerous and the simple fact is, he's never grown up and his messages to her on Facebook prove it. Do I care that he will be followed for the rest of his life by his earlier actions? NOT ONE BIT. He was both dumb and dangerous and he deserves what he gets.
I completely agree that in the majority of cases of statutory rape it takes two to tango, and I think that was true here as well. I'd be the last person to say that my daughter was an unwilling victim. On the other hand, it was my responsibility as a parent to mitigate the damages and keep her safe. After she was arrested twice in three months, Mamabear had to step in and do her job. I don't think that young men and women who were following their instincts should be penalized for life, but there are cases where the punishment fits the crime. In my opinion, this is one of them.
Just for the sake of clarity, I am neither proud of what I did, nor am I self-righteous. I am merely a single parent that saw my daughter going down a path of destruction and did what I felt was necessary to stop the downward slide. And, by the way, she paid her own penance by going through a hearing, performing community service and facing expulsion from school, as well as coming perilously close to having a lifelong record of her own. I would like to think that most responsible parents would intervene before their daughter became pregnant rather than crying rape after the fact.