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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 17, 1993                   TAG: 9303170122
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEWARK, N.J.                                LENGTH: Short

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3 FOUND GUILTY IN RAPE OF RETARDED TEEN-AGER

A jury convicted three young men Tuesday of raping a mentally retarded teen-ager, ruling she was incapable of giving informed consent to sex. A fourth defendant was convicted of a lesser charge.

After a five-month trial and eight days of tense deliberations, the jury found that Christopher Archer and fraternal twins Kevin and Kyle Scherzer sexually assaulted the girl, who has an IQ of 64 and the social skills of an 8-year-old.

The verdict creates ground rules for future cases involving the mentally retarded, said Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and specialist in rape law.

"This was a very difficult case and now it's on the books to be made clear that people who engage in sex with mentally defective people proceed at their peril," Denno said.

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