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Local actor Kevin Joseph Kelly went on trial this week. He is of sexually assaulting two teens in 1996.

(Plain Dealer file)

CLEVEALND, Ohio --A celebrated Beck Center actor and local community theater director Kevin Joseph Kelly went on trial today to face accusations that he sexually assaulted two teenagers 17 years ago.

Kelly has emphatically denied the charges.

He has been absent from the local stage since he was indicted last year.

Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mary Weston told a jury deciding the case that it took the 14-year-old victim about 15 years to come forward and disclose to Lakewood police that Kelly had raped him while he was intoxicated. She said it was a "long road" for that victim to first come forward in 2011.

Weston said another man, who was 18 at the time, also came forward in 2012 and said Kelly had also sexually assaulted him during party for the cast of the musical "Hair." That victim said the defendant attempted to rape him after giving him an inhalant drug.

That man, now 35, testified that he came forward, in part, because he had a lot of guilt over what later happened to his younger friend.

The trial is taking place in Judge Deena Calabrese's courtroom.

One of Kelly's attorneys, Mark DeVan, said prosecutors were asking the jury to label a good man a kidnapper and rapist based solely on the word of two men who were troubled teens who had a habit of smoking marijuana and drinking.

Another witness who was at the cast party, DeVan said, will dispute one of the victim's stories, saying that she slept next to Kelly that same evening in February of 1996. He said that is just one of many lies and inconsistencies that will be pointed out during the trial.

DeVan said his 56-year-old client has, "the courage to come in front of you and say, 'I did not do this.'"

Kelly is charged with crimes, including rape, sexual battery, kidnapping, unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, gross sexual imposition and attempted rape.