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Utah Supreme Court case will determine whether people can sue over alleged abuse decades later

The Utah Supreme Court has heard arguments in a lawsuit against a former federal judge accused of sexually assaulting a teenage witness when he was a prosecutor handling a white supremacist serial-killer trial.

The case heard Monday is a key test of a law aimed at allowing people who say they were sexually abused to sue decades later.

The suit was filed by a woman who says Richard W. Roberts, who went on to be a federal judge, abused her in Utah in 1981.

Roberts has acknowledged he had sex with the woman when she was 16, but he said it was consensual.