Sordid testimony during last week's sexual assault trial of Dayvon Cox, 21, of Aliquippa, offered a sad commentary on the state of society, especially in drug-riddled areas like Aliquippa.

"Sex is a commodity, and a commodity that is not highly valued," said Gerald Benyo, co-counsel for Mr. Cox. It creates an atmosphere in which five young men can easily believe that a young woman they don't even know is fully prepared to have sex with all of them. They believe in "freaks," he said, because freaks are really out there.

"There are waves of young women, every night of the week, that descend on Aliquippa, Beaver Falls and other areas to trade sex for drugs," he said.

But prosecutor Jeff Paladina said Tuesday's sexual assault conviction of Mr. Cox shows that the jury believed this particular young woman was not in that category.

The jury deadlocked, rendering no verdict on two rape charges and two charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. The jurors also found Mr. Cox not guilty of sex charges relating to the boyfriend and a female friend.

But they took a harsher view on other matters, finding Mr. Cox guilty of one count of sexual assault, four counts of robbery, three counts of kidnapping and counts of aggravated assault, simple assault and terroristic threats.

"I'm pleased," Mr. Paladina said. "Obviously, I would have liked to have gotten everything, but the sexual assault is a vindication for the victim."

Mr. Cox will be sentenced Dec. 20, after being assessed for possible sexual predator status under Megan's Law.

Mr. Cox testified last week that he and three of his hometown friends -- Demarkus Walker, 20; Brandon Revis, 20; and Enrico Jackson, 19 -- had set up a drug buy Nov. 15. A man he thought to be from Slippery Rock was to have connected them with another man, who was to sell them three pounds of marijuana.

Mr. Cox said they met the Slippery Rock man in Rochester Borough and he and Mr. Revis got into the man's car along with the man's girlfriend and a female friend, then headed to New Brighton to get the drugs.

They were all having fun, smoking marijuana and chatting. But the man couldn't reach his drug connection, and, Mr. Cox said, he got angry and suspicious as they made two unsuccessful trips into New Brighton.

"He was setting me up," he said, thinking the man intended to rob him and Mr. Revis.

Things got worse when the man found Mr. Cox talking to his girlfriend after he had gotten out of his car.

"We started arguing about that," Mr. Cox testified. "I pushed his head against the window and it broke."

But they finally got in touch with the drug connection, who didn't have drugs but convinced Mr. Cox there was no setup. With things calm again, they decided to buy some marijuana in Aliquippa.

Mr. Cox said that, while the man was out of the car at a bank machine, he asked the girlfriend if she was willing to have sex. He testified that she told him, "Nothing comes for free."

With the boyfriend back in the car, he said, the plan was to "chill, smoke weed, have sex."

They dropped Mr. Revis off and parked on an Aliquippa side street, smoking cigars hollowed out and filled with marijuana, called blunts.

When the man and the other woman got out of the car, Mr. Cox said, the girlfriend "asked me what I wanted to do. What kind of sex did I want to have with her?"

He said they had sex on the front seat of the car, then they left the man and the other woman and drove to another part of Aliquippa.

Mr. Cox said he pulled into another side street and saw his friends. Believing the woman was what he and his friends call a freak, a woman willing to have random sex for drugs, money or fun, he invited his friends to share her.

He said his friends took turns getting into the car for sexual favors, as did Carlos Hicks, 28, an acquaintance who happened by. Meanwhile, he said, he was holding the woman's jewelry. She had taken it off to have sex, but was afraid one of the other men would steal it.

The other four men, all of whom entered plea agreements in the case previously, testified that they thought the sex was consensual.

Mr. Cox said he left while the other men were still taking part. But he forgot about the jewelry. It was still in his pocket when he was arrested on rape charges the next day.

The young woman, an 18-year-old Quaker Valley High School senior at the time, told a different story.

She agreed in her testimony that they went on a drug buy, andhad picked up Mr. Cox and Mr. Revis in Rochester. She agreed that they failed to make the connection, and that Mr. Cox got agitated. From there, the stories diverged.

The woman said Mr. Cox pressed a gun to the back of her head, screaming about a setup. After another failed attempt to find the connection, she said, Mr. Cox ordered her boyfriend to park then, still yelling, fired the gun.

"I thought he shot [my boyfriend]," the woman said, crying on the stand. "I was completely horrified."

She said Mr. Cox then hit her boyfriend with a silver pistol and ordered the women to strip, to be sure they weren't wearing recording devices.

The woman testified that she volunteered that they could get money from her boyfriend's bank account in an attempt to mollify Mr. Cox.

At that point, she said, Mr. Cox ordered her and her friend to give him their jewelry, then took $300 that her boyfriend had gotten from the bank.

The woman said Mr. Cox then dropped Mr. Revis off, pulled into a side street, ordered the boyfriend and the other woman out of the car, demanded sexual favors from her and ordered the other woman to perform sex acts with the boyfriend. She said Mr. Cox then raped her, holding the gun to her side, as her boyfriend looked on from outside the car.

"When he finished, he told [the other two] to stay there, that he would be back for them," she said. Then Mr. Cox drove off with her, soon meeting up with the other men in an alley.

She got in the back seat, she said, and "his friends began to get in one at a time, asking me if I wanted to do things with them. ... I said yes. It seemed like a game, like they were waiting for me to say no so they could beat me up."

She said Mr. Cox was gone by the time the other men finished, and one of them gave her directions to get out of Aliquippa. She was pulled over by an Ambridge police officer at 2:42 a.m. Nov. 16.

The jury ended up battling over the most significant charges against Mr. Cox in deliberations that started at midday Friday and lasted until midday Tuesday.

Mr. Benyo said the sentence could add up to 30 to 60 years, enough that he'd be surprised if the commonwealth decided to retry Mr. Cox on the no-verdict charges.