Suspect in UVA student's disappearance returned to Virginia

(Reuters) - A man arrested in Texas for the abduction of a University of Virginia student was returned to Virginia on Friday to face charges, while newly released records showed he was the focus of a 2002 college rape investigation but was never charged in that case.

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."

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)