Defining multiple version for same dependency in maven

Question

While defining a dependency in maven I am using a dot in groupId shown as below:

<dependency>
            <groupId>sample.group.id.</groupId>
            <artifactId>sample</artifactId>
            <version>1.2.0</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>sample.group.id.</groupId>
            <artifactId>sample</artifactId>
            <version>1.2.3</version>
            <scope>compile</scope>
        </dependency>

PS: I am doing this as I want to use multiple version of same dependency for test and compile scope which is now not supported in maven3

But due to the additional dot in the groupId the generated URL becomes incorrect as an extra slash is added(dot is converted to slash) Any idea how can I not let the dot convert to slash in the generated URL