The state Supreme Judicial Court is trying to decide what to do with a Cambodian refugee who, because of one governmental blunder after another, has for 16 years avoided serving the 20-year sentence he received for raping a woman who spurned his advances.

Factory worker Vith Ly's incredible luck ran out in the spring when he was brought to court for failing to register as a sex offender and Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone Jr.'s office discovered he was never reincarcerated after appeals of his conviction were exhausted in 1991.