A former South Dakota prison guard pleaded not guilty today to charges that he raped a San Diego-area teenager he met online.  Thirty-five year-old Charles LeRoy Crowell extradited last week to San Diego to face eight counts including statutory rape, committing lewd acts on a child and contacting a minor with the intent to commit a sex offense.

In September, Crowell pleaded guilty in South Dakota to two counts of felony statutory rape. Two counts of felony forcible rape were dropped.  He was sentenced to 20 years in state prison. At his sentencing, he apologized for his actions and said he would never have pursued the encounter if he had known the girl was underage.

The girl, now 15, was reported missing from her home in Escondido, about 40 miles north of San Diego, on January 7th.  Police said the girl's parents had stopped her two days earlier from taking a cab to a motel downtown to rendezvous with a man she had met in online chat rooms.  She was found with Crowell outside his apartment in Sioux Falls the next day.

Crowell, a former South Dakota State Penitentiary guard, is being held without bail.