The man charged this week with raping a Towson woman in 1982 - the crime Bernard Webster went to jail for 20 years ago - is a registered sex offender with a lengthy criminal history.

Darren L. Powell, 36, of the 1000 block of Harlem Ave. in Baltimore has a number of drug convictions, according to court records, and was convicted of first-degree rape in 1989, six years after Webster started serving his 30-year sentence.

Yesterday, though, Webster was free, and Powell was in Baltimore County District Court, shackled with other inmates asking for bail. A judge denied the bail request and ordered that he be held while his case moves forward.

DNA tests revealed this fall that Webster could not have been the person who attacked the Towson teacher in her home the afternoon of July 6, 1982.

Soon after Webster's release from jail this month, those same DNA samples connected Powell to the crime, police said.

Webster and Powell had overlapped in prison for at least 11 years, although they served time in different facilities, according to corrections officials.

Court documents show that at the time of his arrest Monday, Powell was on parole for the 1989 rape conviction, which carried an 18-year maximum sentence. He does not yet have an attorney.

Soon after DNA testing cleared Webster of wrongdoing, police said, investigators ran the decades-old samples from the crime scene through the state's DNA database, a collection of samples from the state's serious felons, looking for a match. They found one connecting Powell to the crime.

Police said they arrested Powell Monday morning as he left home for his job at a sign installation business.

Prosecutors said the case against Powell will proceed as if it were any other rape case.