A Lower Burrell man police still considered a suspect in a 16-year-old unsolved murder case was acquitted Thursday of rape and assault charges in connection with an attack last year against a woman with multiple sclerosis.

Jurors deliberated nearly three hours yesterday before determining that Jeffrey Clifford, 52, did not force sex on his 53-year-old friend. The jury, though, in a mixed verdict, found Clifford guilty of seven related lesser offenses, including felony counts of aggravated indecent assault and sexual assault as well as a charge of making terroristic threats.

"We're grateful the jury weighed the evidence and convicted him of the offenses they convicted him of," said Assistant Westmoreland County District Attorney Judy Petrush.

As a result of those convictions, Clifford faces a maximum sentence of up to 37 years in prison. Westmoreland County Judge Richard E. McCormick Jr. revoked Clifford's $200,000 bond and ordered to jail until he is sentenced in about three months.

Meanwhile, authorities still consider Clifford a suspect in the death of 16-year-old Suzanne Rausch, a mentally handicapped teen whose lifeless body was discovered in Northmoreland Park in January 1992.

"He was a person of interest back then, and he is a person of interest now," Westmoreland County Detective John Clark said last night.

During the four-day rape trial that ended yesterday jurors heard evidence about the Rausch case, although the 16-year-old girl's name was never mentioned in court.

Clifford's accuser in the rape case testified that after she was attacked she was told about the Rausch murder. The woman told jurors that Clifford claimed he had dated the teen and left her to die in the park back in 1992.

Petrush contended that statement was used by Clifford in an attempt to scare the woman from coming forward with the rape allegations.

Prosecutors also told jurors of two other attacks by Clifford against handicapped women dating back to 1992.

Petrush said those attacks and the most recent rape allegation had similar components, such as each victim was a woman who suffered from a physical ailment, and each was alone in their homes when the attack occurred.

"The defendant is acting from a script the way he attacks these women," Petrush said in her closing argument.

In the rape case prosecutors said Clifford and his accuser returned to her Lower Burrell home on July 4, 2007, after watching fireworks in Plum. The woman said Clifford threw her on to the bed, repeatedly punched her and hit her with a meat tenderizer before he removed her nightgown and forced himself on her.

Clifford contended the woman, with whom he had been friends for about three years, consented to the sexual activity.

Clifford did not testify during the trial, but three defense witnesses told jurors the woman had previously claimed to have had sex with Clifford. She testified earlier in the trial that she made up a story about sexual relations with Clifford to help his self-esteem.

Defense attorney Duke George argued to the jury there was no physical evidence to support the charges and said bruises on the woman's body, shown in pictures entered into evidence, could have resulted from her falling into furniture.

George said Clifford will appeal the verdict, in part because jurors were told about the 1992 attacks, evidence he claimed was improper in the rape case. That testimony was permitted as evidence in a pre-trial ruling by Westmoreland County Judge Rita Hathaway.

"It just taints the whole case," George said.

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