Legal Question in Family Law in Louisiana

Sexual entrapment

If a minor girl, age 15, goes to a doctor to establish her ovulation cycle, then proceeds to sneak out of her home in the wee hours of the morning to go uninvited into a minor male's home to become pregnant in order to get him, in her mind, to marry her, is that entrapment? I know that the age of concent in Louisiana may be somewhere between 12 and 18 for a female, so what would be any legla repercussions on a situation of this type? The male involved has since married someone else and has two other children. The person who deliberately got pregnant is still single and the child produced is now almost five years old. the male, at the time of the occurrance, was 17. It is not certain if the girl also slept with someone else during the time she was dating the supposed father of the child or that the child actually belongs to the male she says is the father. Is there any way a DNA test can be forced, even though the ''father'' signed the birth certificate?


Asked on 11/22/01, 7:38 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Nick Pizzolatto, Jr. Pizzolatto Law Office

Re: Sexual entrapment

How is what you discribed entrapment? He was not lured into a trap. For purposes of the criminal law, your husband, at 17, was not a minor at the time of the "uninvited" visit by the 15 year old. He could have refused to let her in and did not have to have sex with her.

Under the criminal law in place 5 years ago, the 17 year old male could have been charged with CARNAL KNOWLEDGE OF A JUVENILE, which carried a maximum sentence of a $5,000 fine and 10 years in jail, and/or INDECENT BEHAVIOR WITH A JUVENILE, which carried a maximum sentence of a $5,000 fine and 7 years in jail.

Those laws would have applied in this case IF there was more than a 2 year difference in their ages when the incident(s) occurred. So, if the 15 year old's month of birth comes later in the year than that of the 17 year old, then he would be more than 2 years older than she.

By having his name placed on the birth certificate, he is the father. However, he may be able to challenge the acknowledgment of paternity upon proof, by clear and convincing evidence, that such act was induced by fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact, or that the father is not the biological father.

His right to challenge the paternity may have prescribed, and if not, the courts don't like to declare a child fatherless when there is already one who acknowleged the child as his.

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Answered on 11/24/01, 11:31 am


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