Wife Says Teenage Groom Is 'No Victim'

ATLANTA – A 37-year-old woman who is seven months pregnant by her 15-year-old groom says she prefers older men, but the teenager wooed her so aggressively that he finally won her over.

Lisa Clark, who faces child molestation charges in Hall County because of her sexual relationship with the boy, said in television interviews on Monday that she still hopes to make a life with him and their baby. She said the morality of their relationship was open to debate, noting that in the past it was not uncommon for 13-year-olds girls to be given in marriage.

"They're making a big deal out of a 15-year-old," she told WAGA-TV in Atlanta. "And I can assure you that he was no victim.

"It's not like they are making it out to be. Actually, I'd told him `no' several times because I prefer someone older, but he was just so nice and so sweet," she said.

Clark was arrested last month after her Nov. 8 wedding in neighboring Dawson County. She was released on bond Nov. 18 on child molestation charges. Since then, a grand jury has added charges of statutory rape and enticing a child for indecent purposes.

The boy, who has been on probation on an unrelated burglary charge, was ordered Monday to return to juvenile detention after relatives he was living with said they could not handle him. On Nov. 23, a Juvenile Court judge freed him from detention and said he could live with relatives other than his grandmother, who said she had complained to authorities for weeks about the sexual relationship the boy had with Clark.

Clark denied a contention that she had married the teen to try to avoid prosecution.

"No, because I knew that wasn't going to happen. I told the detective that I got married because I wanted the baby to have his name. I wanted to be married when the baby came," she said. "And I didn't want his grandmother to get the baby."

Clark said the baby is a boy and would have the middle name of her husband, who has not been identified by authorities because of his age.