The young girl who said she falsely testified that Aleck J. Carpitcher molested her has since recanted her recantation, according to state lawyers.

That revelation, the latest twist in Carpitcher's 5-year-old innocence claim, was made this week by the Virginia Attorney General's office in opposition to Carpitcher's petition for a new trial.

Defense lawyers say the girl, after first telling a Roanoke County jury in 1999 that Carpitcher molested her, has remained steadfast over the years in saying that she made up her testimony because she wanted Carpitcher, her mother's boyfriend, out of the house they all shared. The girl - 11 at the time of her testimony and now 16 - has recanted to her mother, a counselor, defense attorneys and a state police investigator.

But according to a motion filed with the Virginia Court of Appeals, the girl said three months ago that she really was abused.

Her latest change of story appears to be a major setback for Carpitcher, whose case was seen as the first real test of a new law that allows convicted felons to raise new evidence of innocence. Until the state's 21-day rule was amended last year by the General Assembly, newly discovered evidence was barred unless it came to light within three weeks of a case's conclusion.

The source of the recanted recantation is not the girl. Instead, Assistant Attorney General Michael Judge attributed her latest version of what happened to a doctor who spoke to the girl's mother. According to an affidavit from the physician, the mother asked during a checkup appointment last November if he had read about the case.

"I was familiar with the Carpitcher matter from the newspaper," the doctor said in the affidavit. "When [the mother] began telling me about it, I paid very close attention to what she said because I knew that a child's safety could be at risk."

The mother said her daughter "had recently told her that the recantation was not true," the doctor stated. The girl also told her mother that if Carpitcher was ever released from prison, she would leave their home because she did not want to be at risk. The doctor said he forwarded what the mother told him to the Department of Social Services.

Lawyers with the Innocence Project, a team of attorneys representing Carpitcher, were reviewing the motion Friday and offered only a brief comment.

"We believe that an evidentiary hearing is required in order to properly assess the credibility of new evidence that has been presented by both sides," said Julia Sullivan, a Maryland attorney involved in the case. "Mr. Carpitcher looks forward to having his day in court ... to prove that he is innocent."

One legal observer questioned the reliability of the doctor's statement, which is essentially hearsay about hearsay.

"Somebody repeating what somebody else [the accuser] said really carries no weight whatsoever," said Steven Benjamin, a Richmond attorney and past president of the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

But if the girl were to come forward and say that it was her recantation - not her earlier trial testimony - that was false, "that would substantially weaken Carpitcher's position," Benjamin said.

A new account from the girl is not among the more than 100 pages of documents filed by the state this week in support of its motion to dismiss Carpitcher's innocence claim. Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for Attorney General Judith Jagdmann, declined to comment Friday when asked if the office had obtained a statement from the girl.

Ever since the girl first recanted in March 2000, nine months after Carpitcher was convicted based on her testimony alone, prosecutors have said they believed she was pressured to change her story. In support of that theory, the state this week cited a 2001 article published in The Roanoke Times.

The girl's mother, who has sided with Carpitcher in the past, said in the article that she was having an argument with her daughter about the case shortly before she recanted. The article quotes the mother as telling her daughter that she was "sick and tired of her lies, that if she didn't tell the truth about Aleck, she could pack her bags and go to see her father."

The girl then recanted - only to admit later that her recantation was a lie told in order to stay with her mother, the state argues.

The mother, her doctor and other people closely associated with the case are not being named by the newspaper to protect the girl's identity. The mother could not be reached for comment Friday.

Judge, the assistant attorney general who is defending Carpitcher's conviction and 38-year prison sentence, also is claiming that the 48-year-old has a "predilection for sexual contact with young girls."

Carpitcher, an American Indian, once told a man that if his accuser had lived on a reservation, she would have already been "broken in." The man took that to mean that the girl, who was 10 or 11 at the time, would no longer have been a virgin, he said in an affidavit.

Although Carpitcher has no prior convictions of sexual offenses, he was once charged with raping a 17-year-old girl in Oklahoma, according to Judge's motion. The charge was later dropped at the request of the victim.

In a third reference to Carpitcher's "history of sexual conduct," Judge cites an incident in which he was shot by an 80-year-old woman in Seminole County, Okla. The woman was reportedly angry over allegations that Carpitcher, then a 20-year-old, was having sex with her 14-year-old foster daughter. The woman was convicted of wounding Carpitcher and killing his mother in the shooting, according to the state's motion.

Evidence of illegal acts that did not result in convictions is generally not allowed in trials. But Judge noted in his motion that the rules are different now that Carpitcher has challenged his conviction by filing a writ of actual innocence with the state's Court of Appeals.

The law that governs the proceedings allows prosecutors to use any evidence relevant to guilt - even if it was suppressed at the trial level. "This is consistent with the recognition that there are instances where the prejudice to an individual must yield to society's overriding interest in determining the truth," Judge wrote.

Once Carpitcher's attorneys respond to Judge's motion, the Court of Appeals will have several options. It could dismiss the petition, order a new trial, or send the case back to Circuit Court for an evidentiary hearing before making a final decision.