Rachel Neufeld Del Rossi had just turned 15 in 1979 when she says she was sexually assaulted by two Margate lifeguards during a summer she was working as a mother’s helper on the Argyle Avenue beach.

The contact with one of them, Steven Chasens, then 24 and now an acupuncturist in Coral Gables, Florida, continued for years, she alleged in a lawsuit filed in Atlantic County.

Del Rossi, now 61, alleged that she was groomed by Chasens, coerced to cross state lines to Florida, and given drugs and plane tickets, all of which Chasens denied. Del Rossi said she suffered extreme emotional and physical distress.

Last week, the civil lawsuit she filed in 2021 came to a jury trial in an Atlantic City courtroom about five miles from the beach in Margate where the two met, before Judge Ralph Paolone

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