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    • Statutory rape/Florida
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Question from Lynn064Nov-2

I am trying to find out what the laws in Florida are concerning statutory rape.

If the offender marries the victim with parental consent, does he or she need to be married to the victim for any given length of time before charges can and will be filed against the offender. In other words, if they get married and he divorces her, should he have waited until a certain amount of time had passed or is he off the hook once he marries her? Is he even off the hook if he marries her?

 

Thank you,

Lynn

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pg1067 Nov-3 80747.2

None of this makes much sense.

"If the offender marries the victim with parental consent, does he or she need to be married to the victim for any given length of time before charges can and will be filed against the offender."

Charges for what?  How old is the alleged victim?  How old is he alleged offender?

"In other words, if they get married and he divorces her, should he have waited until a certain amount of time had passed or is he off the hook once he marries her?"

"In other words"?  This is hardly a restatement of the prior sentence.  A certain amount of time from what to what?  When did the sex occur?  Before the marriage?  During the marriage?  After separation?  After divorce?  How old were the parties at each of these points in time?

"Is he even off the hook if he marries her?"

Off the hook for what?

 

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Tax_Counsel Nov-3 80747.3
The details matter, and we don't have them. But I'll start with a basic premise here. If the guy committed "statutory rape" before he married the girl, marrying her afterwords does not absolve him of the crime and the state could still prosecute him for that so long as the charges are brought within the applicable statute of limitations period.
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Lynn064 Nov-3 80747.4

Thank you for your quick response. The details are he has already married and divorced her. Six months to the day. That is why I thought maybe if there was a marriage it would negate the crime and since it was six months to the day, I thought perhaps there was a statute that said they would have to be married a certain amount of time.

 

So now that I know that, if she and/or her parents chose to, could they still have him prosecuted? Even though the parents did sign for them to be married? What would the chances that law enforcement/ prosecutor file these charges on their own? Could they without a complaint from either her or the parents?

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Lynn064 Nov-3 80747.5
pg1067, I did not see your response when I replied. The man is guilty of statutory rape, no question about it. He just has not been charged. However, when it came to public attention because of other matters, he married the girl with her parents consent. At the time, law enforcement said that because of the other situation that was more important, they were not going to worry about the relationship at that time. All of a sudden, out of the blue he divorced her and it was final six months to the day of the marriage.
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pg1067 Nov-3 80747.6
The facts are still anything but clear.  The only thing I can add (aside from agreeing with "Tax_Counsel's" response) is that only the prosecuting attorney can press criminal charges.  If the cops aren't interested in investigating, then it's unlikely the matter will ever come to the prosecutor's attention, but I suppose the alleged victim or one of her family members can contact the prosecutor's office and try and get a prosecutor interested in the case.
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