Outcry Greets Plea Bargain in Gang Rape : New York: Five men are fined $750 apiece as first-time offenders. Protests pour in from around the country.

GOUVERNEUR, N.Y. —  It was an after-hours party at the Casablanca Restaurant, and the young woman had too much to drink. She passed out in the restroom and didn’t remember being raped by five men.

The men carried her to one of the restaurant’s red Leatherette booths, undressed her and took turns having sex with her while she lay unconscious.

It was more than a week later before the 24-year-old victim, a hospital technician and divorced mother of two, found out what many in this talc mining town already had heard about. But the mild punishment meted out 19 months later raised an outcry that spread far beyond northern New York state.

The men, who knew the woman, were indicted on charges of first-degree rape, punishable by up to 25 years in prison, for the Oct. 26, 1991, attack. On June 5, they were allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of sexual misconduct, which carries a maximum sentence of a year in jail.

Instead, as first-time offenders, they were fined $750 apiece.

The victim called the settlement “a slap in the face.”

“I was raped again by the law, the system,” she said in a statement read at the sentencing. “They will walk free to do that again.”

The men are all in their 20s and live in Gouverneur. The family of one of them owns the restaurant where the private party was held after closing time.

The woman’s family has collected more than 600 signatures in a campaign to drive the prosecutor from office, and the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault is demanding an investigation. Messages of support have poured in from around the country.

Gov. Mario Cuomo said that he would review the family’s complaint against St. Lawrence County District Attorney Richard Manning.

The judge also was criticized for not excusing himself from the case because of his friendship with the family that owns the restaurant.

Manning said reducing the charges was the only way to ensure convictions against all five men. The woman said she didn’t recall anything after passing out and therefore could not have testified that she was assaulted, he said.

In addition, Manning said, there was no evidence such as semen or bruises to prove the attack occurred, and the admissions, although damning at first glance, might not have been useful in getting a conviction.

Police said three of the men implicated themselves in admissions. The statement of a fourth man was suppressed in a pretrial hearing because of pressuring tactics used by the police. Manning said that without confessions for two of the men, their cases probably would have been thrown out before they reached a jury.

Also, New York state law makes it impossible to get a conviction on the basis of a confession alone, Manning said. “If I had one scintilla of physical evidence, I would have gone to trial with all five of these creeps,” he said.

As part of his plea offer, Manning agreed not to make a recommendation on sentencing, leaving that up to the judge.

Walter Munson, an attorney for one of the men, agreed that Manning did the best he could with meager proof.

Manning said he consulted the victim about the plea bargain, but her family denied that she ever approved the more lenient charges.

Town Justice Walter Sibley was on vacation and did not return phone messages. At sentencing, he said that the fines were the highest he had ever imposed in a misdemeanor case and that he had to take into account that the men were first-time offenders.

“We’re sick of excuses like, ‘This is his first time,’ ” responded Gloria Allred, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in sex-discrimination cases.