EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A federal judge didn’t buy a Texas man’s claim he was the lawful common-law partner of a 12-year-old girl with whom he fathered two children in Mexico.

On Thursday, Chief U.S. District Judge Alia Moses sentenced David Manuel Garcia, 42, to 15 years and eight months in prison for engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in a foreign country.

Garcia came under the radar of U.S. authorities a little over six years ago when he filed applications for consular reports of birth abroad for his Mexican-born son and daughter. That’s a cornerstone of the process by which an American procures U.S. citizenship for his or her children born abroad.

The problem was the mother’s age – reported in the application as 21 and 23 years old for each birth – did not match her birth records. U.S. authorities eventually determined that the mother was 13 and 15 years old when she gave birth.

Garcia was arrested on Dec. 11, 2018, at the U.S. port of entry in Eagle Pass, Texas. A lengthy legal battle ensued during the next four years as the defendant claimed he had become a Mexican resident and that his actions weren’t criminal under the law of Coahuila, Mexico.

Defendant tried to use Mexican law as shield

In documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Garcia claimed he and the victim were a “legitimate familial unit” because the girl’s father consented to him and the 12-year-old girl to live together. He claimed the children were born under Mexico’s union libre status – concubinage or a form of common law marriage.

The documents claim Garcia was a “well-known member of a family” in the Mexican town where the girl and her family resided and not a stranger coming from Texas to engage in illicit sex.

But six years into the “relationship,” the girl went to the authorities in Mexico. She alleged physical mistreatment and went on to sue for financial support for her children.

“On Dec. 26, 2008, I separated from David Manuel Garcia Benavides, but we had problems as a couple well before that. He almost always argued about everything and has hit me with his hands on the head, grabbed me by my hair and dragged me on the floor and several occasions gave me bruises from the blows he inflicted on me with his hands,” the victim stated in documents filed in Mexico and translated for the U.S. court.

The documents also show a custody battle over the children after the mother started to work, and Garcia accused her of abandoning the children.

American prosecutors had a different take on the situation. They alleged Garcia “engaged in forced sexual acts with a minor victim under the age of 18, which resulted in the birth of two children.”

Homeland Security Investigations agents investigated the case with assistance from the U.S. State Department’s Major Case Coordination Unit.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Holly Pavlinski prosecuted the case.