Lincoln. Neb. ? A 22-year-old man who legally married a 14-year-old girl in Kansas after she became pregnant has been criminally charged in Nebraska for having sex with her.

Nebraska Atty. Gen. Jon Bruning said Matthew Koso of Falls City, began a sexual relationship with the girl when she was 13. After she became pregnant, her mother gave permission in May for Koso to take her daughter to Kansas, which allows minors to get married with parental consent.

“The idea … is repugnant to me,” Bruning said. “These people made the decision to send their … 14-year-old daughter to Kansas to marry a pedophile.”

Koso was charged Monday with first-degree sexual assault, punishable by up to 50 years in prison. He was released on a $7,500 bond pending an Aug. 17 preliminary hearing in Richardson County Court.

“Kansas has this ridiculous state law,” Bruning said. “Of course the marriage is valid … but it doesn’t matter.

“I’m not going to stand by while a grown man … has a relationship with a 13-year-old – now 14-year old – girl,” he said.

Bruning said the girl is seven months pregnant.

She and Koso were married in May after getting a marriage license in Hiawatha, Kan., just across the Nebraska border.

Nebraska allows people as young as 17 to marry if they have parental consent.

Kansas does not have a minimum age restriction on marriage as long as both parents or guardians approve or it is approved by a district court judge, said Whitney Watson, spokesman for Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline.

While there is no minimum marriage age set in Kansas law, case law sets the minimum age at 14 for boys and 12 for girls.

Koso’s lawyer, Willis Yoesel, said the girl’s father has not lived with the family for some time. He said the girl’s mother and Koso’s parents approved of the marriage.

Yoesel said he has written Bruning, saying the prosecution is unwarranted.

“My question to the attorney general’s office was very simple: Why?” he said. “It’s kind of an unfortunate situation.”

He said the couple is “trying to make the best of a bad situation.”

“It seems to me like they, as much as they could, made a responsible decision to try to cope with the problem,” he said.

Yoesel said the couple came to him after Brown County District Judge James Patton, who performed the marriage ceremony on May 3, told them he would not grant the marriage license until they discussed the situation with a lawyer.

“The families are all united in this effort. I don’t know who is complaining,” he said. “What their objective is in this, I don’t know. What benefit is there to anybody in the prosecution of this young man?”