RIO DE JANEIRO >> The judge was stumped.

He had ordered a pair of identical twins to take DNA tests in a paternity case in the central Brazilian state of Goiás. Both came back positive.

Neither man would say who fathered the girl at issue. Her mother had turned to the courts seeking financial support for the child, who was born after a casual fling. The woman said she could not say for sure which of the two men she had slept with.

So Judge Filipe Luis Peruca opted to punish both twins.

In a ruling made public Monday, he chided the men for acting in “bad faith” and ordered that each pay child support for the girl, who is now 9.

The mother, whose name is redacted in court documents, initially sought financial help from just one of the twins, whose identities were also not disclosed.

When a DNA test came back positive, that man denied being the child’s father. The court then ordered that his twin brother undergo a test. When that test also came back positive, neither man would acknowledge being the father.

Peruca, who is based in Cachoeira Alta, a small municipality in an area where cattle farms are the dominant industry, wrote in his decision that the men’s conduct was in keeping with a long pattern of deceit.

“It’s evident that the defendants, from adolescence, took advantage — and continue to take advantage! — of the fact that they are identical twins,” he wrote in the ruling. “It became clear that they used each other’s name to attract as many women as possible and to hide instances of betrayal in their relationships.”

The judge ordered that the names of both men be added to the child’s birth certificate. He also ordered each man to pay the woman 30 percent of a minimum wage in Brazil, and they must collectively cover 50 percent of the child’s school and medical expenses.

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