Victims Of Sexual

An article in last Sunday's Sun about former schoolteacher John Merzbacher might have been interpreted as implying that Derek Rosenbach is among the former Merzbacher students who were alleged victims of sexual abuse. In fact, Mr. Rosenbach is not.The Sun regrets the error.

The headline is becoming more and more common: "Man gets 13-year term in sexual abuse case."A 54-year-old Taneytown man, said the news article three weeks ago, had molested both his stepdaughter and his stepdaughter's daughter. The abuse of the stepdaughter had included intercourse while the young woman was pregnant.The abuse of the stepdaughter's daughter began when the child was 3 and continued for about 12 years.Sexual abuse of children is an epidemic in this country.The irony here is that, at about the same time that news story ran, protests over a fictional story about a sexual-abuse victim have caused more controversy in Carroll County than has the incidence of real abuse.

Boston. -- In the very last interview before his execution, America's most famous and least remorseful murderer, Ted Bundy, finally made a clean breast of things. He confessed: Porn made him do it. His psyche had been putty in the hands of pornography.The ''porn defense'' did not elicit a whole lot of sympathy for the serial killer. It went down in the annals along with the ''Twinkie defense'' mounted by Dan White when he claimed that junk food made him kill San Francisco's mayor.But when the Senate returns from spring break, the Judiciary Committee will be considering a bill to let victims of sexual crimes do what Bundy tried to do: Blame the video, the movie, the book, the magazine.

A bill that would make sexual harassment a crime in Annapolis is being rewritten by the city attorney.Alderman Carl O. Snowden, the Democrat from the city's 5th Ward who introduced the legislation, saidseveral sections are being revised.Business leaders and critics who testified against the bill last week complained that the definition of sexual harassment was too broad and other areas were too vague.Representatives of the AnnapolisHousing Authority, the city's non-profit Community Action Agency, the YWCA and the National Organization for Women showed up in support of the measure.

Four months after the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas controversy faded from the national spotlight, women are still citing their anger over the confirmation hearings as their main reason for joining the National Organization for Women.Anne Arundel County's NOW membership hasgrown steadily since the Supreme Court hearings, said chapter head Jeanmarie Kolb. That's why she expects a number of women will have plenty to say about a sexual harassment bill pending before the Annapolis City Council.A public hearing on the legislation introduced by Alderman Carl O. Snowden is scheduled for 7:30 tonight.

At 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 16, 1989, Melanie Mooney was knocked down and sexually assaulted while she was walking through a park near her Edgewood home.That experience led Mooney to decide she should play a role in helping crime victims. So this summer, Mooney plans to enter a training program for volunteers at the Sexual Assault Resource Center so she can help other victims of crime. The center provides counseling and shelter for battered spouses and victims of sexual assaults."It took me about six months to come around," said Mooney, a woman in her early 20s who wants to become a police officer.

One by one, visitors to the Sexual Assault Recovery Center in Mount Vernon recoil at the sight of "Broken Trust."A sculpture made of plaster, Broken Trust depicts two figures. The taller one, a man shrouded in a black cloak, is holding a girl in a sinister embrace. The girl's arms and head hang low."It feels alive," says Cecelia L. Carroll, executive director of the center, where the figure stands in a second-floor room. "It exudes an evil presence."It was created by artist Amy Kaplan, 25, who says Broken Trust grew out of an experience in her life.

It's become a cliche whenever a monstrous crime is revealed. Someone will always say: "He's the last person you would think would do something like that."This time, the speaker is attorney Bill Porter and the subject is his client, a 43-year-old Baltimore man who pleaded guilty Monday to repeatedly raping his three daughters during much of their adolescent years, resulting in at least five pregnancies that ended in abortions. His 43-year-old wife also pleaded guilty to rape for her complicity in the abuse.