The new charges, announced Thursday, prompted a Summit County Common Pleas judge to order the Akron man to remain jailed without bond.
Sheriff’s deputies brought Beasley, 52, into the courtroom in a wheelchair for a pretrial hearing on an unrelated drug-trafficking case. Dressed in black-and-white-striped jail garb and loafers, Beasley kept his head bowed and his hands folded on his lap. He said nothing during the brief appearance.
He is the prime suspect in the shooting deaths of three men and the gunshot assault of another man. Each of the victims is believed to have answered a bogus Craigslist employment ad in October or November. Beasley is accused of placing the ad in an effort to kill unsuspecting job seekers.
His attorney, Rhonda Kotnik, said Beasley continues to deny any involvement in the slayings that stretch from Akron to Noble County in rural southeastern Ohio.
In a handwritten letter to the Beacon Journal, Beasley took issue with his portrayal by friends as a Christian “con man” who used his position as a chaplain and halfway house operator as a front for prostitution and drug dealing.
“ ... to call me a con man when I sacrificed for others is wrong,” Beasley wrote. “To turn their back on me is not following Christ’s example. I gave three full years of my life to that ministry and what I got out of it was the satisfaction of doing the right thing.
“There was no ‘con’ to it.”
Kotnik said Beasley told his mother during a telephone call this week that he believes he suffered strokelike symptoms. The gray-haired, 300-pound Beasley normally walks with a cane because of a back injury, but he told deputies he was unsteady on his feet before his court appearance.
A contingent of deputies and reporters encircled the courtroom as Beasley was taken in by wheelchair for his first public appearance since his Nov. 16 arrest, which came just days after the first body was recovered in a grave near Caldwell.
Beasley’s head bobbed up and down slowly Thursday as attorneys talked with Judge Tammy O’Brien. In addition to the drug-trafficking case, Beasley faces a multicount indictment on prostitution charges. Akron police vice detectives contend his Yale Street halfway house was a ruse to allow prostitution.
His mother, Yvette Rafferty, sat on a bench directly behind him during the short hearing, rocking back and forth and appearing on the verge of tears. She left the courthouse hurriedly and gave only a few fleeting comments as she walked briskly to a black pickup across the street.
"We're praying for the families and the victims," she said to reporters.
After she got into the passenger seat, she rolled the window down and said, "God bless you all. Do the right thing. Get the truth."
Authorities say the teenager was involved in a scheme in which applicants answering a Craigslist ad for a job at a nonexistent cattle ranch in Noble County, 90 miles south of Akron in rural southeastern Ohio, were robbed, then killed. Authorities say they have connected two bodies to the scheme and identified one other man who was shot but escaped.
The teen was questioned by the FBI and arrested in mid-November several days after Scott Davis, of South Carolina, said was shot in the arm and escaped after he answered the ad.
The body of Norfolk, Va., resident David Pauley, 51, was found on the Noble County property, owned by a coal company and often leased to hunters. Authorities say Pauley was killed Oct. 23.
Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, was found buried Friday near an Akron-area shopping mall. He had been shot in the head.
A third body also found Friday was that of a man who was killed by a gunshot to the head, the coroner in Noble County said Tuesday. Authorities haven't said whether that body is linked to the scheme but say it's suspected the body is that of a man named Ralph Geiger.
Officials did not explain how they arrived at the conclusion or give any other details about the man.
The complaint against the teen says he participated in the crimes with Richard Beasley, a 52-year-old Akron resident said to have acted as his mentor.
Beasley was awaiting trial on prostitution and drug charges when authorities took him into custody this month, and police have said a halfway house he ran in Akron was a front for prostitution.
Rhonda Kotnik, an attorney for Beasley on the drug and prostitution charges, said Tuesday that she's still gathering information, with hearings scheduled later this week.
She said she isn't representing Beasley in anything involving the Craigslist case and points out he hasn't been charged in that. She said she assumes the teenager has been cooperating with police, which is common in such cases.
Noble County Judge John Nau has issued a gag order prohibiting lawyers from discussing the case, a move he defended Tuesday, saying he's trying to ensure a fair trial in a sparsely populated county.
"It may not even be tried here, but I'm not sure it won't, so I prepare for the possibility that it might," he said.
The Associated Press generally does not identify juvenile suspects, but the names of Rafferty and his mother have been widely reported by local and national media outlets.
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