A Gwinnett County magistrate on Friday set bond at $5,000 for a mother charged in connection with the alleged statutory rape of her 14-year-old daughter.

Lawrenceville police said the woman allowed Lucio Gomez-Gonzalez, 20, to stay in a room in her home for about a month with her daughter after learning he had impregnated the girl. Gomez-Gonzalez was charged with statutory rape and the mother was charged with being a party to the crime of statutory rape.

Gomez-Gonzales and the child's mother are illegal immigrants from Mexico. The woman's lawyer, Wesley Person, said police are overreaching in a case that would not be a big deal in Mexico.

With the woman's relatives nodding their agreement, Person said the woman's decision to allow Gomez-Gonzales to move in to her house was a culturally acceptable alternative to the girl moving in with an older man in another house.

Expecting parents to report the pregnancies of their teenage children to police is unrealistic, Person said.

"What it appears is, she encouraged him to take care of the child he conceived," Person said. Neither the mother or the girl wanted Gomez-Gonzales to be prosecuted.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a policy of not naming victims of sex crimes. The AJC is withholding the mother's name to avoid identifying the girl.

Administrators at Richards Elementary School in Lawrenceville alerted child welfare authorities after the girl began exhibiting signs of morning sickness at school.

Detective Tim Ashley of the Lawrenceville Police Department testified that the girl's mother allowed Gomez-Gonzales and her daughter to live together in the family home. Gomez-Gonzales and the girl shared a bed and were expected to prepare their own meals and pay $300 a month in rent, Ashley testified the girl's mother told child welfare workers.

"She said she didn't want her daughter to move out," Ashley said.

As of late Friday, the mother had not posted bond and was still in jail. The preliminary hearing for Gomez-Gonzales was postponed until April 3.