Man convicted of lewd acts on child that he later married

FULLERTON, Calif. (AP) — A jury today found a California man guilty of committing lewd acts on a 15-year-old girl who later married him, had his child and stayed with him for a decade after she disappeared from her mother's California home.

Jurors reached their verdict in the case against 42-year-old Isidro Garcia. He was found not guilty of kidnapping to commit a sex crime, and the jury deadlocked on a charge of rape.

Prosecutors said Garcia kidnapped his then-girlfriend's teenage daughter after a fight at the family's Santa Ana apartment in 2004 and threatened and beat her for years until she mustered the courage to report him to authorities.

Garcia contended the teen ran away with him willingly to escape an unhappy home and fabricated the abduction story in 2014 after reconnecting with her family on Facebook.

Garcia could face a maximum sentence of four years and four months in prison. Since he has been jailed since 2014, he could get credit for time served at his sentencing hearing on April 15.

He also will have to register as a sex offender and faces deportation to Mexico upon his release.

There was no dispute that the girl got into a truck and drove off with Garcia in 2004 after a fight between Garcia and her mother. The question at the heart of the case was whether she did so willingly or because she felt trapped after Garcia told her she couldn't go home because police had been called to the family's apartment.