Richmond seeks removal from sex offender listings

COLUMBUS (AP) — A judge is deciding whether a man convicted as a juvenile of raping a 16-year-old girl should be removed from Ohio’s sex offender listings.

Judge Thomas Lipps has scheduled a hearing Thursday in juvenile court in Steubenville in the case of former high school football player Ma’Lik Richmond.

Richmond was convicted in 2013 of raping the West Virginia girl during a drunken party following a football scrimmage the previous year.

Lipps ordered Richmond as a sex offender to register his address every six months for the next 20 years, then decreased that to once a year for a decade in 2014.

Ohio law allows juveniles to request removal altogether. The state opposes the request.