The man suspected in a string of rapes in Ogden was arraigned Tuesday on charges that he raped an eighth victim, a 16-year-old girl.
Jason Brett Higgins, 23, was scheduled for a May 19 preliminary hearing on the new charges, the same date as his hearing on 16 charges previously filed.He pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of aggravated sexual assault, sodomy and aggravated kidnapping in the Oct. 3 rape of a girl in the parking lot of a church at 10th Street and Jefferson Avenue.
Higgins was arrested Feb. 24 in connection with a rape Aug. 29 at the Newgate Mall.
It was one of 14 rapes reported in the Ogden and Roy areas since last August.
He was released after his palm print failed to match one from the crime scene, but he was rearrested March 26.
Authorities said the new charges stem from a DNA match. Of nine seminal samples, the state crime lab has now matched Higgins to six rapes and excluded him from two.