GREENEVILLE-Jeffrey Lee Stock, who was indicted June 9 by a Greeneville federal grand jury on charges of traveling in interstate commerce and failing to register as a sex offender, made an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis Inman last Thursday.

According to U.S. Attorney Russ Dedrick, Stock violated the federal "Adam Walsh Act" by being a convicted sex offender who traveled from Florida to Tennessee and failed to register with authorities here.

Stock's trial on the federal charges is set for Sept. 11. A pretrial conference and motion hearing will be on July 21.

After Thursday's hearing, Stock was returned to custody by the U.S. Marshall Service.

"He's now in federal custody," Brownlow said of Stock. He added, "That brings a new wrinkle into this."

Stock plead guilty to sexual battery in 1998

Stock was reportedly charged in March 1998 in Morgan County, Indiana, in connection with two Indianapolis teenagers, ages 16 and 17, who were battered and raped in a rural area of the county, according to a local newspaper's accounts obtained by The Newport Plain Talk.

Stock, then 29, was reportedly charged with two counts of rape and one count of criminal deviate conduct, all class A felonies; two counts of criminal confinement, class B felonies; and one count of battery resulting in bodily injury, a class A misdemeanor.

Stock entered a guilty plea to sexual battery against the two females in November 1998. If he had been convicted on all the original charges, he could have faced a maximum of 190 years in prison and $50,000 in fines, according to an article in The Reporter-Times of Martinsville, in Morgan County, Indiana. Stock reportedly lived in Fillmore.

Teenagers were allegedly carjacked

The girls said they were carjacked at the intersection of two streets in Indianapolis. They were stopped at a stop light at 5:30 a.m. when a man walked up, asked for assistance getting to another town about 20 miles away, and jumped in the car.

They continued to drive and at some point the man produced a box knife, which held a razor blade, according to The Reporter-Times. The teenagers were forced to take him to a field in a rural area of the county where he threatened, beat and raped them, according to the two teenagers.

At his initial hearing in Morgan County's Superior Court in March 1998, during questioning by Judge Tom Gray, Stock said he had attended school through the 10th grade.

He also reportedly said he had just started a new job about a week earlier and had not yet received a paycheck.

"He was extremely nervous and told the judge he had 'never been here before,' according to a reporter's account of the hearing published in The Reporter-Times.