Virginia tricked by male partners

By Dionne Walker ASSOCIATED PRESS | Tuesday, June 24, 2008

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RICHMOND | The couple walked into a Norfolk courthouse on a spring day, exchanged a few words and, within 10 minutes, were seemingly husband and wife.

It was an unremarkable ceremony - except that several weeks later, officials realized that the shapely bride might not have been a woman.

Now authorities in the state, where same-sex marriages are illegal, are weighing whether to file misdemeanor charges against the couple, Antonio E. Blount, 31, and Justin L. McCain, 18. An announcement is expected this week. At issue is whether the couple lied on their marriage license.

A prosecutor says the decision to press charges could turn on whether the pair knowingly misled officials when they applied for a license and later traveled to a courthouse for a ceremony. If the bride was transgender, and identified as a woman, it is not clear whether the marriage would be considered illegal.

The pair went to Newport News Circuit Court on March 24 to obtain a marriage license - Mr. McCain appearing as a woman and saying the name "Justine" before a deputy, said Newport News Circuit Court clerk Rex Davis.

Mr. McCain produced a Virginia driver's license, but because of a design quirk - the "m" or "f" for male or female appears directly against a darkened state seal - nobody noticed Mr. McCain's gender, Mr. Davis said.

"When things are rolling along and you don't have any reason to suspect that somebody is not being completely forthright with you, you might not take the time to check," said Mr. Davis, who issues about 2,200 licenses a year.

The same day, the couple traveled 19 miles south to Norfolk, where local marriage commissioner Al Coward performed the ceremony.

"They pawned themselves off as a man and a woman, and they did a very good job," he said.

Officials became suspicious around May 12, Mr. Davis said, when Mr. McCain returned to court to apply for a name change. The new name, Penelopsky Aaryonna Goldberry, "raised a red flag," he said.

Paperwork later revealed that Mr. McCain's legal name of record was Justin, not Justine. Vital statistics officials in Mr. McCain's home state of North Carolina later confirmed that he was born male, Mr. Davis said. North Carolina officials did not provide actual records, however, he said.

When Mr. McCain called to check on the name change application last month, Mr. Davis said the teen confirmed his sex at birth.

The couple has not commented publicly since the ceremony. The marriage is considered illegal because both individuals are legally considered men, Mr. Davis said.

A man who answered a door at a Norfolk address linked to Mr. McCain late in May identified himself as Mr. McCain's grandfather. But he said the teen had moved and wasn't in touch with the family. Calls to a phone number listed for Mr. McCain went unanswered.

How a court might view the case isn't clear. In 1999, a Texas court threw out a wrongful death lawsuit a transgender woman filed after the death of her husband, ruling that while the plaintiff had undergone a sex-change operation, she was actually a man and her marriage was invalid. But in 2004, a Kansas court ruled in favor of a male-to-female transsexual who identified as a woman to apply for marriage.

Investigators will decide whether there was false information on the marriage license application, said Newport News Commonwealth's Attorney Howard Gwynn.

Though applicants must swear to the truth of the information on their marriage license, the application mentioned "groom" and "bride," not male and female, Mr. Davis said.

That has been changed to say "male applicant," and "female applicant," he said.

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