COLUMBIANA CO. 4 to face child-rape charges

The three victims were pre-teen girls.
LISBON -- A Columbiana County grand jury recently handed up indictments for four area men accused of crimes involving sexual assaults of children.
Charged with assaulting the same child are John Moore, 28, of Foundry Hill Road, Hanoverton; and Glen Guthrie, 53, of Winona Road, Hanoverton.
Moore is accused of three counts of rape involving a girl who was 9 in August 1999, when the first rape is alleged to have occurred.
Authorities say Moore also raped the girl twice in March.
Guthrie is charged with raping the same girl in December 1999. He also is charged with an attempted rape of the girl in December 1999.
Assistant county Prosecutor Tim McNicol said there is no evidence the men cooperated with one another in the assaults.
Rape carries a maximum prison term of 10 years; the maximum term for attempted rape is eight years, McNicol said.
Others: Robert Maines, 27, of E. Sixth Street, Salem, is charged with rape and gross sexual imposition. The gross sexual imposition charge bears a maximum five-year prison sentence.
Authorities say Maines assaulted a girl at different times between 1994 and 1998. The girl was 7 when the first assault is alleged to have occurred.
Michael Groff, 44, of Middle Beaver Road, Lisbon, is charged with two counts of rape.
Authorities say Groff raped a girl in fall 1999 and again in January. The girl was 8 when the first assault is alleged to have happened.
All the men are free on bond. Maines, Groff and Moore are to be arraigned at 9 a.m. Monday in common pleas court.
A date for Guthrie's arraignment wasn't immediately available.
All four men knew their victims, authorities said.