Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man accused of holding three women captive for over a decade, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to hundreds of charges, including rape, kidnapping and murder.
Castro, 52, did not speak during the brief arraignment.
The grand jury indicted Castro on 139 counts of rape, 177 counts of kidnapping, seven counts of gross sexual imposition, three counts of felonious assault and one count of possession of criminal tools — as well as one count of aggravated murder for allegedly purposely terminating the pregnancy of one of his alleged captives.
Castro was arrested last month after one of the women he is accused of kidnapping, Amanda Berry, broke free from his home, more than a decade after she had disappeared.
Freed along with her were her daughter, born while she was being held, and two other women who had disappeared, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight.
The indictment covers only the period of time between August 2002, when Berry disappeared, and February 2007.
The prosecutor, Timothy McGinty, said he may seek the death penalty.
I have a hard time believing that his brothers were not aware of what was going on, someone had to know about it. Maybe we do have a tendency to overlook the obvious. They might be ahead if they let him go free and go to work for the Obama administration, or get in to government or politics somehow .... NSA could use him ........................
