A MENTALLY disabled woman and her daughter are doing well after they were freed in October following two years in captivity and after police investigated an abuse allegation one of the suspects made against her, authorities say.
"The victim in this case is slowly recovering," US Attorney Steve Dettelbach said.
Jordie Callahan, 26, Jessica Hunt, 31, and Daniel J. "DJ" Brown, 33, were charged with forced labour. Callahan also was charged with tampering with a witness in the investigation.
The suspects had an initial appearance in US District Court in Cleveland and were ordered jailed until a bond hearing on Monday.
Callahan's mother, Becky Callahan of Ashland, said in a phone interview that the allegations were "all lies".
She said the alleged victim was friends with her son and Hunt, her son's girlfriend, and that they tried to help the woman out by offering her a place to live because she didn't have a home.
Andrew Hyde, who represented Callahan on related state kidnapping charges that were dismissed on Tuesday as the federal case was announced, called the charges ludicrous and said the woman at the centre of the alleged forced-labour plot moved in and out as she pleased.
"There was never any forced labour, any forced cohabitation. She was never forced to do anything. She used this story to get out of trouble she was in" with regard to a child-abuse allegation, Hyde said.
Hyde said county social service workers placed the girl with her mother when the woman was living with the three suspects.
A federal court lawyer for Callahan declined to comment. A second defence lawyer, Ed Bryan, said Hunt will plead not guilty and said there are credibility issues with the mother.
There was no immediate response to phone and email messages left for the lawyer representing Brown.
Police first got involved when the woman was charged with shoplifting a chocolate bar and asked to be jailed because the three suspects "had been mean to her".
Police checking into her "mean" claim went to the apartment after one of the suspects said it was the woman who was abusive. Authorities said the allegation was a ruse complete with a video staged by the suspects. They said the suspects forced the woman to act as if she were mistreating her child.
Defence lawyer Hyde said police told the woman they would help if she felt she had been framed with an incriminating video. According to Hyde, she bought that argument and made up the enslavement allegation.
"I think the feds just failed to fully investigate this before they jumped to some conclusions," Hyde said.
A woman in the Ashland neighbourhood said Tuesday she was surprised by the allegations, saying that Callahan sometimes helped her husband with yard work and other chores and that she never saw signs someone was being held captive in the house.
Tara Williams, 51, said she occasionally saw Callahan walking down an alley with a large yellow-and-white snake draped around his neck, but never saw him threaten anyone with it. She said three pit bulls also lived in the apartment, along with a pot-bellied pig that once got loose.
The white, two-storey house of three apartments, including the defendants' apartment, is set back from the road with a "no trespassing" sign near the front.
Williams said she occasionally saw the presumed victim walking by quickly and sometimes underdressed for cold weather. The woman never spoke or looked at others, Williams said. Williams never saw a child, she said.
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