Man aquitted in UGA library fire arrested again

<p>A man arrested for trespassing at one University of Georgia library after being acquitted of charges he set fire to another U-G-A library is in jail again.</p><p>Authorities arrested 21-year-old Jason Allen Nelms on charges that he skipped bail and spent months on the run.</p><p>He was booked into the Clarke County Jail on Thursday and is being held without bond on charges of criminal trespass and failure to appear in court.</p><p>Nelms' arrest stems from his failure to shop up in Clarke County State Court in August to be arraigned on the criminal trespassing charged. U-G-A police charged him after he was caught in the university's Law Library.</p><p>Nelms had been barred from all university property for two years after he was arrested for the fire that damaged the school's Main Library.</p><p>A Clarke County Superior Court jury acquitted Nelms of first-degree arson in April. The order barring him from all university was to have expired in less than two months when a university employee spotted him in the law library June 14th.</p><p>Nelms was living on the streets of downtown Athens and sometimes on U-G-A's campus when he was arrested for the library fire, which investigators say was set on the second floor and caused some 17 million dollars in damage.</p><p>Under state law, anyone charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass and who leaves Georgia to avoid prosecution is guilty of out-of-state bail jumping -- a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Conviction on the criminal trespass charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2005/11/134478