Parents Turn to Police When Daughters Have Sex

March 14, 2008 — -- Parents may not want to hear it, but it's just a fact: Lots of teenagers are having sex.

About a quarter of 15-year-old girls and boys, almost 40 percent of 16-year-olds and about half of 17-year-olds say they've had sex. But what if parents of the girl find out? And they're furious? In many cases, they can use the law to punish the boy.

In the fall of 2007, when Damon Hadley was 17, he had sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend. School authorities caught them cutting school and called their parents. The girl's father then drove to the school, where he saw Hadley in the parking lot.

"So I hit him," said Gilberto Soto, the girl's father. "Do I regret what I did? No. Would I do it differently? Yes, I would, I would." And what would he do differently? "Now? Take that kid, stick him in the car, tie a rope around his neck and go as fast as I could up and down the highways, every single highway there is," he said.

Soto's daughter told him Hadley had raped her, but she later told the police that Hadley didn't force her and that she made up a false report because she was scared.

"[Having sex is] something that she brought up before I did, so I thought it was something she wanted to do," said Hadley.

In New Hampshire, the age of consent is 16, and Hadley received a three-month suspended sentence. That means if he gets into trouble before the end of this year, he may have to serve that three-month sentence.

Soto got a one-year suspended sentence, and he's angry that Hadley didn't go to jail. "He should've done at least a year," he said.

In one respect, Hadley was fortunate because he wasn't put on New Hampshire's sex offender registry.

Jeff Davis -- who also ran into an angry dad -- wasn't so lucky. He was an 18-year-old with a 15-year-old girlfriend, and they were having sex.

"It was the norm," Davis said. "It really was. There are a lot of teenagers these days that are having sex. We thought we were very much in love, we were in high school."

His girlfriend's father, Mark Putorti, didn't think the relationship was good for his daughter Alexis. Her grades at school had slipped and he thought Davis was a bad influence. "All I wanted was him away from my daughter," he said.