Edward Arnell Alberty pleaded guilty Monday to five felonies -- second-degree burglary, larceny and three counts of making false declaration of ownership at a pawnshop.

Tulsa County District Judge William Kellough imposed the 15-year prison term in accordance with a plea agreement in which two more false-declaration counts were dismissed.

Alberty, 44, was arrested in June at his Tulsa residence in connection with the theft of a television during a burglary at a home in the 3300 block of East King Street.

Police found the television at a pawnshop, and records show that Alberty pawned the television two hours after the burglary, a report states.

In another case filed in June and resolved Monday, police reported that Alberty made false declarations of ownership in pawning property that had been stolen in another burglary, records show.

Police previously had linked Alberty to the 1987 sexual assault for which Arvin McGee Jr. wrongfully served 14 years behind bars before DNA evidence established McGee's innocence.

Based on DNA findings that tied Alberty to the crime, he was charged in September 2002 with first-degree rape and two counts of forcible sodomy linked to an Oct. 29, 1987, attack on a woman in Tulsa.

But Alberty's defense lawyers asserted that the statute of limitations in that case expired Oct. 29, 1994.

A law that took effect in September 2002, removing the statute of limitations for certain sex offenses in which DNA evidence is available, could not be used retroactively in Alberty's case, they said.

In 2003, the state Court of Criminal Appeals ordered the charges against Alberty dismissed, ruling that the revival of the previously expired statute of limitations violated his constitutional rights.

When Alberty was charged in that Tulsa County case in 2002, he was in prison for a Washington County rape. He also has previous convictions for robbery, sodomy, escape and burglary.

Alberty was freed from prison in 2004, the Department of Corrections' Web site shows.

Bill Braun 581-8455
bill.braun@tulsaworld.com