`Husband' Of Oregon Girl, 14, Is Held -- Teen Says Man, 27, Is Father Of Her Child

SWEET HOME, Ore. - The law calls her a 14-year-old rape victim. She says the accused rapist is her husband and the father of her baby.

When police came to arrest 27-year-old Troy Allen Lukens, they found him and the girl hiding in a closet.

"She kept saying, `I'm his wife, it's legal for me to be here,' " said Sweet Home Police Chief Bob Burford.

The Gresham man was arrested Thursday on multiple counts of rape, sodomy and sexual abuse. He also was arrested on one count of kidnapping involving the 14-year-old. One charge, forcible rape, involves the so-called wife's 13-year-old friend.

Authorities said Lukens flew the 14-year-old girl to Fulton County, Ga., about six weeks ago and married her illegally. All states require applicants for marriage licenses to be at least 18 if they don't have parental consent. With parental consent, couples can marry in Georgia at age 16.

Burford said he did not know whether the marriage license the girl carries is authentic or if she passed herself off as 18 when applying for the license.

"She looks like a baby to me," Burford said.

Multnomah County authorities charged Lukens in 1993 with sodomizing the same girl, and jailed him as a "danger to the community." The case was dismissed for lack of evidence.

The girl recanted and Lukens passed a polygraph test, a court order stated.

If convicted on the current charges, Lukens would face at least eight years in prison.

He had just started a dishwashing job at the Skyline Inn in Sweet Home, having walked in for a job just as the regular dishwasher was a no-show.

"He jumped right in, a real go-getter," said owner Lynn Totman. "It didn't strike me that he was weird. He was clean-cut, not even a moustache. He had a resume and references. We're all shocked."

Lukens was being held in the Linn County Jail on $300,000 bail. The girl was taken to the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Center in Portland.

Information on their baby was unavailable.