It’s usually hard to tell how a court’s going to rule after reading just the first three sentences of an opinion. But not always.

A 2/18/09 Washington Court of Appeals (Div. II) opinion on a nasty custody fight begins:

“When Anthony Meredith was about 37 years old and a Virginia Assistant Attorney General [an AAG, a state prosecutor], he sought a foreign bride on the internet. He contacted a 16-year-old Colombian girl named Jazmin Muriel. When Muriel turned 18, she moved to Virginia and married Meredith. Less than 10 months after the wedding, then-pregnant Muriel fled to Washington State.”

The use of the word fled is pretty much a clue that the court isn’t likely to reverse the trial court and give custody to Mr. Meredith. Later we learn that this charmer was violent to his teenage wife, made false child abuse allegations against her, and tried to have her deported.

Just a random creep, not the one from this case
Courtesy littledan77, via Creative Commons license.

Hard to say which is scarier, that such older men successfully proposition young girls over the internet, or that some of these jerks are powerful government officials entrusted with the public interest.