A 21-year-old Livingston man is being held in the Polk County jail on a charge of sexual assault of a child after deputies recovered a runaway 16-year-old girl who authorities say had been picked up out of county and brought back to his residence. Anthony Scott Armendariz was booked into the county jail early Sunday, and the case has since drawn scrutiny over the wide age gap between him and the teenager involved.
The investigation began when the San Jacinto County Sheriff's Office asked Polk County for help locating a 16-year-old runaway on August 22, according to East Texas News. Polk County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to a possible location for the runaway and ultimately recovered the juvenile, who was then returned to her parents. The outlet reports that Armendariz had picked the teenager up from out of county and taken her back to his residence, prompting deputies to open a formal investigation into the incident.
Charge Carries Steep Penalties Under Texas Law
Armendariz was arrested after further investigation and was booked into the Polk County jail at 12:32 a.m. on August 23 under booking ID 48228, according to jail records reported by Recently Booked. He was charged with sexual assault of a child and is currently held on a $40,000 bond, the same booking records show.
Under Texas Penal Code § 22.011, the age of consent in Texas is 17, meaning any sexual contact with a minor younger than that is a crime regardless of the minor's alleged consent, according to FindLaw. Sexual assault of a child is classified as a second-degree felony in Texas, carrying a potential sentence of 2 to 20 years in state prison and a fine of up to $10,000 upon conviction, per Pantheon Legal Group.
Age Gap Rules Out a Common Legal Defense
Texas law does carve out an affirmative defense for consensual sexual conduct when the accused is no more than three years older than a child who is at least 14 — but the five-year gap between the 21-year-old Armendariz and the 16-year-old victim puts the case outside that threshold, according to the Texas State Law Library. That gap effectively rules out the so-called Romeo and Juliet defense sometimes raised in close-in-age cases involving teenagers and young adults.
If convicted, Armendariz would also face mandatory, lifelong sex offender registration with local law enforcement under Chapter 62 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, according to Polk County. That requirement includes ongoing public registry listing and periodic address verification long after any prison sentence is served.
Rural Counties Lean on Each Other for Runaway Cases
The case underscores how neighboring rural agencies in East Texas routinely coordinate to track down missing juveniles who cross county lines, since San Jacinto and Polk counties share a contiguous border, per the Polk County Enterprise. Separately, Texas Penal Code § 25.06 makes it a Class A misdemeanor — punishable by up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine — to knowingly harbor or shelter a runaway minor without notifying law enforcement or a parent within 24 hours, a statute Hoodline has previously outlined in Hoodline's coverage of missing-minor cases.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office reported handling 25 total arrests, 15 assault reports, and five sex crime investigations across the county during July, according to the agency's monthly service summary. It's the latest in a string of child sexual abuse cases the office has pursued this year, following an eight-year Lake Livingston manhunt that ended with the arrest of fugitive Doyle Cheek and June's arrest of Onalaska church volunteer Doyle Gene Hodge II after multiple victims came forward.
It remains unresolved whether prosecutors will pursue additional charges, such as harboring a runaway child, or whether defense counsel will seek to reduce the $40,000 bond, according to the Polk County Enterprise. The timeline for a formal grand jury indictment in Polk County court has also not yet been announced.
-4.webp?w=160&h=400&fit=crop&crop=edges)