Authorities have filed kidnapping and rape charges against Cleveland man

       
A Cleveland man arrested after three women missing for a decade were found alive at his home was charged on Wednesday with kidnapping and raping them.       

Prosecutors brought no charges against his brothers, saying there was no evidence they had any part in the crime.       

Ariel Castro, 52, was charged with four counts of kidnapping - covering all three captives and the daughter born to one of them while she was held - and three counts of rape against the three women.        

The former school bus driver owns the peeling, rundown home where the women were rescued on Monday, after one of them broke through a screen door.        

At a news conference, authorities gave few details on the women's ordeal.        

But police said earlier in the day that they were apparently bound with ropes and chains, and a city councilman briefed on the case said that they were subjected to prolonged sexual and psychological abuse and suffered miscarriages.         

The councilman also said the women were kept in the basement for some time.       

Police said a paternity test on Castro was being done to establish who fathered the now 6-year-old child of captive Amanda Berry.         

Castro was in custody and couldn't be reached for comment.       

Castro's brothers, Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50, were also arrested after the women were rescued, but there was no evidence they had any part in the crime, and no charges were brought against them, Cleveland Prosecutor Victor Perez said.       

Two of the young women, meanwhile, were welcomed home by jubilant crowds of loved ones and neighbours with balloons and banners on Wednesday.      

The families of Berry and Gina DeJesus protectively took them inside, past hundreds of reporters and onlookers.        

Neither woman spoke, and their families pleaded for patience and time alone.       

The crowd outside Berry's sister's home was filled with people who wished the families well.           

Many were simply shocked, but overjoyed, that the girls were found alive.        

"I thought it was a joke. I thought it was, the news stations got hacked," said Michelle Shelton, who lived near Ariel Castro at the time of the abductions and remembers being afraid to walk around her neighborhood.       

"I cannot believe that they've been in the heart of our city behind doors that look so normal and so regular and just like everybody else says, right under our nose," said Michelle Mink who went to middle school with Berry and DeJesus.        

The Associated Press does not usually identify people who may be victims of sexual assault, but the names of the women were widely circulated by their families, friends and law enforcement authorities for years during their disappearance.         


AP