The former chairman of the University of Missouri-Rolla chemistry department is facing felony sex abuse charges involving his children dating back nearly 40 years.

Manuel

Oliver Manuel Sr., a professor emeritus, was held in the Phelps County Jail today on $700,000 bond. Manuel was charged Tuesday with two counts of rape, four counts of sodomy and one count of attempted sodomy, said Kenneth Clayton, Phelps County prosecuting attorney.

A spokesman for UM-Rolla said Manuel was arrested in his office in the chemistry building. Two of the charges accuse Manuel of raping his daughter in the chemistry building basement and in an off-campus office UM-Rolla provided for Manuel. The alleged crimes took place in 1967.

Clayton said all of the sex abuse counts relate to alleged acts Manuel carried out against his children in 1967 and in the 1970s and 1980s. Clayton said the charges involved four different children, two boys and two girls.

"At the time the offenses took place, the children ranged in age between 7 and 13 years," Clayton said. He said the victims of the alleged crimes had recently come forward with the accusations.

A probable cause statement signed by Ken Nakanishi of the Rolla Police Department said Manuel’s children had accused him of sexually abusing them for several decades. One daughter reported more than 150 alleged incidents between the time she was 6 until she was 14, the statement said.

Clayton said he believed the charges could be brought because his research indicated there was no statute of limitations in force for the crimes at the time they allegedly occurred.

A Phelps County court clerk said no attorney of record is listed for Manuel.

Manuel, 69, joined the UM-Rolla faculty in 1964 and retired in 2000. He served as chemistry department chairman from 1982 to 1996 and as interim chairman for nearly a year in 1999.

Manuel earned master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. His research focused on the sun, the origins of the solar system and the composition of meteorites. Among his theories was that the sun’s most abundant element was iron, not hydrogen as most scientists believe.

After learning of Manuel’s arrest, UM system President Elson Floyd issued an order barring him from using his office or coming onto the UM-Rolla campus.