An excerpt from this article: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2014/09/02/arizona-statutory-rape-victim-forced-pay-child-support/14951737/

Nick Olivas became a father at 14, a fact he wouldn’t learn for eight years.

While in high school, Olivas had sex with a 20-year-old woman. As he sees it now, she took advantage of a lonely kid going through a rough patch at home.

Nick Olivas became a father at 14, a fact he wouldn’t learn for eight years.

State law says a child younger than 15 cannot consent with an adult under any circumstance, making Olivas a rape victim. But Olivas didn’t press charges and says he didn’t realize at the time that it was even something to consider.

MONTINI: Statutory rape victim paying child support? Come on …

The two went their separate ways. Olivas graduated from high school, went to college and became a medical assistant.

Then two years ago, the state served him with papers demanding child support. That’s how he found out he had a then-6-year-old daughter.

“It was a shock,” he said. “I was living my life and enjoying being young. To find out you have a 6-year-old? It’s unexplainable. It freaked me out.”

He said he panicked, ignored the legal documents and never got the required paternity test. The state eventually tracked him down.

Olivas, a 24-year-old Phoenix resident, said he now owes about $15,000 in back child support and medical bills going back to the child’s birth, plus 10 percent interest. The state seized money from his bank account and is now garnisheeing his wages at $380 a month.

He has become one of the state’s 153,000 active child-support cases, according to the Arizona Department of Economic Security division of Child Support Services.

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