Rape kit leads to arrest in 2011 case

Jacksonville man, 57, charged with lewd and lascivious molestation on child

Jacksonville Sheriff's Office booking photo of Samuel Powell

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As the result of a recently tested rape kit, a Jacksonville man was arrested in a 2011 case, according to an arrest report. 

Samuel Powell, 57, is charged with lewd and lascivious molestation on a victim younger than 12.

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It's another arrest resulting from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement processing the backlog of rape kits.

According to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office arrest report obtained by News4Jax on Friday, in December 2016, a rape kit was selected for further processing from a 2011 case and sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for biological testing. 

In February, the arrest report said, a lab report from the FDLE was written and a match was made between DNA analysis from rape kit and Powell. 

Investigators said the victim was 11 years old at the time of the incident in 2011.

After a traffic stop on Thursday, police said, Powell was brought in to be interviewed and then was arrested.

He was booked into the Duval County jail, where he was ordered held without bond. 

The state Department of Law Enforcement began processing the rape kits when a backlog was discovered in 2016. As of January, the FDLE has completed 6,161 rape kits, of which 1,461 of the kits produced a positive DNA match. Its goal is to process 8,600 rape kits by 2019.