A 14-year-old boy in Texas could be labeled a sex offender after he was arrested for allegedly having sex with his 12-year-old girlfriend.
The seventh-grader faces charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, the Houston Chronicle reports. If he is convicted, the state would register him as a sex offender.
The teen's mother said the sex was "consensual and he loved her," the Chronicle reports.
Texas has what is known as the “Romeo and Juliet” law, which allows an underage person to have consensual sex with someone aged three years apart. But this does not apply to someone who is younger than 14 years old.
Public defender Jackie Stewart Gravois said that generally, "if the prosecutors can prove that it was consensual and it was not forced in any way, they typically don't file these cases or they end up dismissing them," the Chronicle reported.
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