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 Jesse Matthew, 32, was flown into Charlottesville Albemarle
Regional Airport under FBI escort shortly before 6 p.m. and was
being held in jail there pending a court appearance on an arrest
warrant for abduction with intent to defile, the FBI and
Charlottesville police said.
He was being held without bond ahead of an initial court hearing
scheduled for Thursday.
The FBI said Matthew's extradition to Virginia was kept secret for
security reasons, but photos released by the agency showed the
shackled suspect, wearing green jail garb and a bullet-proof vest,
being escorted by agents across a tarmac toward a van.
Hannah Graham, an 18-year-old sophomore at the University of
Virginia, was last seen leaving a Charlottesville bar with Matthew
in the early-morning hours of Sept. 13, according to police.
Matthew was found on Wednesday in a tent pitched on a beach outside
of Galveston, Texas, about 1,300 miles from the University of
Virginia campus.
Matthew was a primary suspect in a 2002 campus rape investigation
while attending the Christian university founded by Jerry Falwell in
Lynchburg, Virginia, according to Commonwealth's Attorney Mike
Doucette.A woman reported she was raped on the campus of Liberty
University on Oct. 17, 2002, according to Lynchburg police.The woman
told authorities she had not consented to sex, but decided not to
pursue the case. No charges were filed against Matthew."The issue
was one of consent," Doucette said. "Basically, the woman was saying
she hadn't consented, and Matthew was saying she had."
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Matthew was a student at Liberty University from 2000 to 2002 and
played on the football team, university officials said.School
officials would not say whether Matthew was expelled, citing federal
privacy laws, but confirmed that he left the Lynchburg campus within
months of a complaint being filed. The university statement
referenced a campus crime log reporting an alleged rape on Oct. 17,
2002. It did not did specifically name Matthew. Matthew's attorney,
former prosecutor James Camblos, declined to comment on the
incident.
Charlottesville General District Court documents show Matthew had
previous arrests and had prior convictions for public intoxication
and indecent exposure.
(Reporting by John Clarke in Washington; Writing by Dan Whitcomb;
Editing by Scott Malone, Eric Beech, Sandra Maler and Ken Wills)
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