Dad Faces Charges Of Selling Underage Daughter Into Marriage, Groom For Rape

January 14, 2009 12:24 a.m. EST

San Francisco, CA (AHN) - A father from an indigenous Mexican community in California has been arrested and charged with selling his 14-year-old daughter for marriage. The groom also has been arrested and may be charged with statutory rape.

Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, 36, will be arraigned Wednesday in Monterey County Superior Court after prosecutors charged him with violating a state law against causing a person to cohabitate in exchange for money.

Police learned that Martinez sold his daughter to neighbor Margarito de Jesus Galindo, 18, for $16,000, 100 cases of beer and several cases of meat and other items on Sunday after he asked them to bring the child back to him from the groom' house because the latter failed to deliver the dowry.

Prosecutors also plan to charge Galindo with statutory rape.

Martinez belong to the Trique community in Greenfield, a farming area in California's central coast. The community practices arranged marriage of girls as young as 12. Under California law, however, the age of consent for marriage is 18, and 16 if with parental approval.