This article has been updated. Find the latest version here.
---------
A longtime Alaska resident has been charged with a 2001 rape and kidnapping in the Sterling area after investigators matched his DNA to evidence that sat untested for years.
:quality(70)/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-adn.s3.amazonaws.com/public/66WQRHBNIBEPZIHO62RNFH6OM4.jpg)
A grand jury indicted Carmen Perzechino Jr., 57, in March. Perzechino is a former musher who ran the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in 2004 and more recently tried to open a marijuana business in Sterling.
He was in the Philippines at the time of the indictment and is being extradited to Alaska, according to the Department of Public Safety. He is accused of raping a woman he met at a bar and threatening to kill her, according to charging documents obtained by the Daily News.
Alaska State Troopers had refused to discuss the case or acknowledge its existence until Thursday.
Troopers say the arrest is the first to result from a new, grant-funded effort to process evidence from long-untested rape kits in Alaska. Troopers say Perzechino was extradited from the Philippines in August and has appeared before a judge in Washington state, where he waived extradition to Alaska.
Troopers asked that anyone with information about Perzechino’s alleged crimes contact troopers.