Here's a pickle

[noname3]

I am trying to figure out if there can be any action taken with this case study.

A foreign female marries an American male, she becomes a US citizen and tells about how she was sexually assaulted when she was a child (10 years old). The accused has been charged and convicted in the foreign country and received a sentence of less than a year for his crime. Is there any legal action that can be taken in a case like this?

I have heard of cases where (depending on the country) if an American is travelling aboard and murdered, or what have you, they will ship or fly the accused to the US and hold trial and/or sentence him here.

[marinepilot]

I would say that you're putting out two different situations in your question above. In the first paragraph you state that the foreign woman marries an American male and gets U.S. residency status. She then tells him she was raped at the age of 10 years old (obviously MUCH before she married) and that the criminal was charged and convicted, and served his sentence in the foreign country. There would be no legal action that could be taken in the U.S. because the foreign country -- in which the crime occured -- has already punished the bad guy.

In the second paragraph you mention about cases where an American is travelling abroad and either commits or is the victim of a crime. It doesn't gel with your first paragraph because the woman was most definitely not a U.S. citizen when she was 10 and the crime happened. As far as the United States bringing the person accused of committing a crime against a travelling American citizen, I would guess it doesn't happen very often. I mean look at Joran VanDersloot, the guy who supposedly killed that young American girl in Aruba. We didn't bring him here and prosecute him.