Woman jailed for hiding child groom

[Janice]

DOUGLASVILLE, Georgia (AP) -- A 37-year-old woman who married one of her son's 15-year-old friends pleaded guilty to helping her young husband escape from state custody.

Lisa Clark was sentenced Wednesday to two years in jail and three years' probation after entering the plea to two counts of hindering the apprehension of a child.

Clark had denied having anything to do with the boy's escape in February after she had given birth to their child. The boy bolted from a juvenile home and was found in Cleveland.

Assistant District Attorney Jeff Ballew said Clark arranged with a friend to hide the boy in Ohio.

In March, Clark pleaded guilty to charges of statutory rape and was sentenced to nine months in jail. She was also forbidden to have any contact with her teenage husband until at least his 17th birthday.

Clark was arrested in November. A few days earlier, she married the boy under a 1962 law that set the marrying age in Georgia at 16 but made an exception in the case of pregnancy.

Last month, Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a bill that bans teens under 16 from tying the knot. The new law allows 16- or 17-year-olds to wed with the approval of a parent or guardian and a probate judge.

The couple's child is now in the custody of a friend of Clark's.