DID CHILD BRIDE ERIN MARRIED DO SO WILLINGLY? BY MARRYING THEM, DID SHE SHIELD A SEXUAL PREDATOR?

By Juan Montoya
The age of the bride should have raised a red flag.
She turned 16 on the same day that her 21-year-old boyfriend and mother dragged her to the Cameron County Clerk's Office to get a marriage license.
The "mother" made like she filled out the parental consent form at the county clerk's office, signed on the bottom and they went out the door.
They didn't take the girl far. They just simply went nust next door to the Justice of the Peace 2-2- office.
Even though the marriage license states that unless one of the couple is in the military, or working for the government they must wait for 72 hours before they can have the wedding ceremony performed by a judge, priest or rabbi, they were able to get married.
How?
Justice of the Peace 2-2 Erin Garcia issued them a "waiver" for the 72-hour waiting period and less than half an hour after Joe Rivera's office issued the license, she presided over the ceremony that made them husband and wife.
In fact, between the issuance of the license to marry (1:58 p.m. and the time the ceremony was recorded (2:23 p.m.) on the same day, it was only 21 minutes – less than a half hour later!
What was the hurry?
If JP Garcia-Hernandez had taken the time to peruse through the parental consent form, she would have noticed that none of the boxes had been crossed out in it. The question of whether the bride-to-be was pregnant wasn't answered, and neither was any other. Other pertinent questions that might have led the judge to slow down the process were not there, either.
Had the judge not issued the 72-hour waiting period, might she had discovered that perhaps the groom might have been under investigation for sexual assault of a child if she was pregnant? Would not that have given law enforcement personnel time to investigate whether the child had been subject of sexual abuse at the hands of the adult five years her senior? If that had turned out to be true, might not then she had looked into the background of the groom and found out see if he had a criminal record or was the objects of any investigation, or perhaps even have been locked up in the state penitentiary? Or if he abused or had ever been convicted of a violent crime or narcotics violation?
And what was the role of the mother? Was she in any way facilitating any criminal sexual assault crime that might have been occurring and it would have been to her and to the groom's benefit that they be married as soon as possible?
The State Penal Code states that sexual activity between any person under 17 with any person three years older constitutes a sexual assault. In this case, the woman might have been intimate with the groom before she reached the age of 16 and he was 21, a full five years older and withing the parameters of the criminal sexual charge.
As an officer of the court, it was JP Garcia-Hernandez's responsibility to report any suspicion she might have had of criminal sexual crimes even it it meant forgoing her $250 fee for the ceremony. Instead, 21 minutes after they got to her window, she granted them a "waiver" for the 72-hour waiting period for which her court has no jurisdiction, married them, collected her $250 plus $40 for the fake "waiver" and sent them away, the girl to a future only God can know.
Additionally, she failed to file the "waiver" with the Cameron County District Clerk and failed to pay the $250 filing fee as is required by law.
Could the groom have been advised by some lawyer that under state law the defense to criminal sexual assault of a child is that the perpetrator be married to the potential victim?
In her haste to grab the $250 for the marriage ceremony and the additional $40 for the bogus "waiver" of the 72-hour waiting period, did JP Garcia-Hernandez shield a sexual predator for her $290 silver coins?