Update (5:15 p.m.): Ga. man released on reduced sentence for Hilton Head burglaries charged with rape

A Georgia man sentenced to 50 years for a series of burglaries and thefts on Hilton Head Island was charged Wednesday with rape in Statesboro, Ga., less than a year after he was released from his reduced prison sentence.

Michael Teddy Powell had also been charged with sexual assault on Hilton Head in 1995 but later acquitted.

Powell, 58, was arrested Wednesday in Vidalia, Ga., and charged with rape, aggravated sodomy and burglary in connection with an incident in October 2014 at a Statesboro apartment complex, according to a news release from the Statesboro Police Department.

Powell had been sentenced to 50 years in prison in 1998 after being charged with six counts of burglary, three counts of petit larceny and assault of a police officer for a series of crimes in the South Forest Beach area on Hilton Head between October 1996 and March 1997.

However, Powell's sentence was reduced to 20 years after a hearing in 2001. He got out on supervised release Aug. 1, 2014, according to S.C. Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services records.

On Oct. 1, 2014, Powell allegedly sexually assaulted a 21-year-old woman at the Somerset Apartments in Statesboro. According to the release, Powell knocked on the woman's door and forced his way into the apartment.

The victim could only give a vague description of the suspect, because his face was covered during the incident. DNA analysis was completed in June and entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, which matched the DNA to Powell in early July.

On Wednesday, Vidalia police arrested Powell at his home on warrants obtained by the Statesboro Police Department, the release said.

Powell was a registered sex offender, having been convicted of three peeping-tom offenses in Georgia between 1985 and 1991, according to sex-offender records site iCrimeWatch.

Powell had also been charged with two sexual assaults in North Forest Beach on Hilton Head -- one in September 1995 and a second in October 1995. Powell was acquitted on one charge in November 1997 and was never tried on the second.

He was charged with the sexual assaults in September 1997, while in jail awaiting trial on the burglary charges.

During the trial for the sexual assault charge, it was revealed that Powell was identified by an accuser after a Beaufort County Sheriff's Office investigator noticed he resembled the composite sketch from her description.

The accuser confirmed Powell's identity after seeing him walk with a distinguishing limp in a local bar, but no hair or fingerprints were found in the home that matched Powell.

At the time of his sentencing for the Hilton Head burglaries, it was reported Powell needed to serve 85 percent of his sentence before being eligible for parole. However, Powell's supervised release began Aug. 1, 2014, after only serving about a third of his sentence, according to S.C. Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services records.

A motion by Powell's defense attorneys, made two days after he pleaded guilty in 1998, wasn't discovered until January 2001, when a defense attorney submitted another letter on Powell's behalf, according to a Circuit Court order from March 2001.

After a hearing on the motion in Sumter in February 2001, Powell's 50-year sentence was amended to a 20-year sentence on Feb. 20, 2001, with credit for the four-plus years he had already served.

Powell's supervised release began Aug. 1, 2014, after serving over 85 percent of the 20-year sentence, according to S.C. Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services records.

Follow reporter Matt McNab on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Matt.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 9:41 AM with the headline "Update (5:15 p.m.): Ga. man released on reduced sentence for Hilton Head burglaries charged with rape."