After a Wisconsin mother discovered her 13-year-old son was sexually active with a 15-year-old girl, she supplied him with condoms. The mother now faces indictment on charges of sexually abusing a child by permitting her son to have sexual relations before he is of age. The county prosecutor, Patricia Barrett, is relying on a child abuse statute that criminalizes sex between a person 17 or older and one younger than 17. To get around that limitation, the prosecutor borrowed from asset forfeiture laws, arguing that the condoms the mother supplied to her son facilitated his sexual intercourse with the girl, thus making her a partner to the act and thus liable to sex abuse charges.

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