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Hearing set for Richmond Thursday

STEUBENVILLE — A hearing has been set for 11 a.m. Thursday in Jefferson County Juvenile Court to determine whether sexual offender reporting requirements should be lifted for a now-21-year old who was convicted in the Steubenville High School rape case.

Ma’Lik Richmond was convicted in March 2013 along with co-defendant Trent Mays, 22, of raping a female juvenile from Weirton in August 2012 following alcohol-fueled parties.

Mays was sentenced to a minimum of two years in a Department of Youth Services facility. Richmond was sentenced to a minimum of one year in a state youth detention center.

Richmond’s sexual offender reporting requirement was cut in half in November 2014 following a hearing by visiting Judge Thomas Lipps. Lipps reduced the reporting requirements for Mays in September 2015.

Lipps originally determined Richmond and Mays to be Tier II sex offenders requiring them to report their address to the county sheriff every six months for 20 years. Lipps, who will preside over Thursday’s hearing, lowered the classification for Richmond and Mays to a Tier I offender, requiring them to report their address to the sheriff once a year for 10 years.

Lipps at the time said Richmond could ask to have the sex offender reporting requirements terminated in three years, then again in another three years and finally in another five years.

Ohio law allows juveniles to request removal altogether. Richmond’s public defender declined to comment ahead of the hearing. The state attorney general’s office, which was appointed special prosecutor at the beginning of the case, opposes the request.

Lipps said, when the juvenile sex offender classification came into effect, it wasn’t supposed to be punishment. Lipps said judges were initially supposed to weigh an assessment about whether the juvenile will commit future acts.

“The goal of juvenile court is to rehabilitate young offenders and adjust treatment as they go along,” he said during the November 2014 hearing.

He said it is difficult as a judge to balance accountability of the juvenile for their actions, protecting society from future acts and rehabilitating the juvenile offender.

After Richmond’s release from a state juvenile facility, he attended colleges in West Virginia and Pennsylvania before transferring to Youngstown State University in the fall of 2016 as a sophomore.

Last year, Youngstown State sidelined Richmond after getting backlash about him playing football. After Richmond sued, a settlement with the university allowed him to stay on the active roster. Richmond is currently a student and a football player, Youngstown State spokesman Ron Cole said Monday.

Richmond’s father, Nathaniel Richmond, was killed in August in an unrelated confrontation when he shot Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Bruzzese Jr. in an alley beside the courthouse. Bruzzese and a probation officer returned fire. The judge had been overseeing a wrongful death lawsuit the father filed against the Jefferson County Metropolitan Housing Authority.

(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)

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