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STEUBENVILLE -- Ma’Lik Richmond, one of two then-juvenile defendants in an August 2012 rape case stemming from a series of alcohol-fueled parties, no longer has to register as a sex offender.
Visiting Judge Thomas R. Lipps issued the Richmond ruling through Jefferson County juvenile court Friday, three weeks after Richmond’s appeal to be removed from the registry requirement was heard.
“The system of rehabilitation for young offenders set out by the Ohio legislature has worked as designed in this instance,” Lipps wrote.
Richmond and Trent Mays were convicted as juveniles in what became known as the Steubenville High School rape case. Richmond was 16 at the time of the rape.
Mays, now 22, was sentenced to a minimum of two years in a state juvenile detention facility. Richmond, now 21, was sentenced to a year. Lipps had reduced Richmond’s sexual offender registry requirement from twice a year for 20 years to once a year for 10 years in November 2014. The registration requirement for Mays also had been cut by half.
Richmond’s request to be removed from the registration requirement is allowed by state law. The state attorney general’s office, which prosecuted the case, was opposed to the request.
Lipps ruled that “the nature of the offense and its effect on the victim, her family and the community is considerable, but that the defendant’s successful rehabilitation should be weighed accordingly in regard to the need for further supervision, monitoring or registration. The defendant is a low risk for further sexual offending.”
Lipps noted Richmond was denied early release and completed his time in detention at the minimum set by the court; successfully completed sex offender and other treatment; has returned to the community and lived with his custodians beyond his 18th birthday in 2014 and has registered as required with the sheriff. Lipps wrote that Richmond has expressed remorse and regret on multiple occasions, presents empathy and awareness of the impact on victims of sexual assault.
Richmond has attended West Virginia University and California University of Pennsylvania and now is a student at Youngstown State.
Richmond sued for the right to play football at YSU last fall.
Lipps said there have been several sex offender diagnostic assessments of Richmond since August 2012 that “consistently relay that this defendant is a low risk to sexually re-offend.”