An Akron man who has been tied to a teenager charged in the Craigslist murder-robbery scheme was indicted this week on multiple prostitution charges. Richard J.
A Summit County grand jury returned the count indictment on Tuesday. It includes one count of compelling prostitution and 14 counts of promoting prostitution. Beasley already had been charged with those counts, but the indictment offered new information about them. Beasley, 52, the indictment says, forced a year-old boy to work as a prostitute for him. In a Summit County courtroom this morning, Beasley appeared before a judge in a wheelchair and with his head rocking rhythmically.
His attorney said Beasley felt weak today, and deputies in Akron provided the wheelchair. Beasley did not speak in court today and did not respond outside to a shouted question of whether there were more bodies in the Craigslist case.
In that case, Noble County authorities have charged Brogan Rafferty, 16, with a delinquency count of aggravated murder in the shooting death of David Pauley, 51, whose body was found in a shallow grave in Noble County on Nov. The body was found after Scott Davis, 48, of South Carolina, told authorities that he was shot by two men he was meeting in Noble County when he answered a Craigslist ad about a job tending a ranch. Rafferty is charged with a delinquency count of attempted murder in that case.
Court documents say Rafferty assisted Beasley in luring the men to Noble County. Beasley is described as a church mentor to Rafferty. Authorities also are investigating two other slayings thought to be connected. The body of Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, who also reportedly answered the ad, was found Friday in a wooded area near an Akron shopping mall. A third dead man was found Friday buried close to where Pauley had been buried. Texas authorities allowed Beasley to be temporarily released from an Ohio jail earlier this year.
