By Joe Johnson
A man is set to begin trial in Athens next week for allegedly kidnapping a University of Georgia student who he then drove to Jackson County where he raped her last year.
Beginning Monday morning, 58-year-old James William Daniels of Martin Luther King Avenue in Jefferson, is scheduled to go on trial in Clarke County Superior Court on charges of kidnapping and false imprisonment, according to court records.
Daniels had also faced a rape charge in Athens, but the charge was dismissed in January after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation determined from coordinates of a GPS tracking device that the alleged sexual assault occurred in Jackson County, according to court records.
aThe rape charhe will be prosecuted in Jackson County at an undetermined date following the trial in Athens.
According to Athens-Clarke County police, the incident occurred early the morning of Oct. 24, 2018 when the victim was on East Broad Street and Daniels convinced her to get into his car and then drove her to an undisclosed location where he allegedly raped her.
Daniels later let the student go and authorities said she then made it back to the UGA campus, where she notified police.