I don't know your case, but the term "rape" has been legally expanded a lot from what we might imagine when we hear the word "rape" (forceful sexual act).
Legally it can mean a case where a man met a women in a bar, she was not drunk and wanted to go home with him. She explicitly consented. Later it ends up that she was using a fake ID to get into the bar, she was only 17.9 years old in a state where the age of consent is 18. Or alternatively, the guy recently moved a block over. In his old location the age of consent was less than 18, but now he moved and he committed rape (aka, the opinion that got Richard Stallman to step down).
YMMV but I don't think in my state either of those things would be tried as just "rape".
If there's no force/threats/drugs etc involved and the minor consents, it's charged as statutory rape which is different than capital-R rape.
Statutory rape can be a felony, but in cases like an 18 year old and a 17.5 year old having sex it's a misdemeanor and realistically 99.999% of the time it happens there are no charges
Legally it can mean a case where a man met a women in a bar, she was not drunk and wanted to go home with him. She explicitly consented. Later it ends up that she was using a fake ID to get into the bar, she was only 17.9 years old in a state where the age of consent is 18. Or alternatively, the guy recently moved a block over. In his old location the age of consent was less than 18, but now he moved and he committed rape (aka, the opinion that got Richard Stallman to step down).
And no, there is no exception for mistaking the age. https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...