Restoration of Rape Charges Is Sought
Citing what he said was a series of legal blunders, the state attorney general asked a court Monday to reinstate rape charges against five men allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanors in a 1991 assault on an unconscious woman in a tavern.
The men pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct and were each fined $750. As part of a plea agreement, the original charges of first-degree rape, a felony carrying a sentence of up to 25 years in prison, were dismissed last June.
At a news conference in New York City, Atty. Gen. G. Oliver Koppell said he had asked a state Supreme Court judge to reinstate the rape indictments on grounds they had been illegally dismissed by a local judge who lacked jurisdiction and misapplied the law.
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