Ex-Future-Son-In-Law

Stupidity may not run in the family of 36-year-old Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, but it certainly runs in the neighborhood.

Police arrested Martinez last month for agreeing to sell his 14-year-old daughter to their 18-year-old nebighor, Margarito de Jesus Galindo, in exchange for 100 cases of beer, a few cases of meat and $16,000 in cash. In California a girl as young as 16 is eligible to marry with her parent's consent; however,in California marrying a 14-year-old is never legal, regardless of parental consent. With $16,000 in play, why not purchase a fake birth certificate?

This sort of exchange might well have gone unnoticed, with the poor girl betrothed as a means to her father's ends. Yet, Mr. Martinez isn't as shrewd a business man as the deal suggests. When Galindo failed to fulfill the terms of the agreement, Martinez went to the police for help. This being a business arrangement, Martinez believed that the police were obligated to help him get his due.

Martinez's call to police landed him and his ex-future-son-in-law in jail. Martinez for attempting to sell his daughter into slavery for lewd and lascivious acts, statutory rape and cruelty to a child by endangering health. Galindo was arrested on suspicion of statutory rape, but prosecutors have not determined whether to file charges against him.

What makes the case a quagmire for authorities is Martinez's ethnic affiliation with an indigenous Mexican Trique community. It's common practice for Triques to arrange marriages for girls as young as 12. In such cases the exchange of money isn't seen as a payment for the child, but as a marriage dowry and the meat and beer the family's contribution for the wedding reception. State law, however, outranks cultural traditions, especially when those traditions involve the wellbeing of children.