14 DAY TRIAL // Charles Ramsey, the man making the news for freeing kidnapping victims Amanda Berry, Georgina DeJesus and Michele Knight in Cleveland, has a shady past himself.
*User discretion is advised when playing the clip, it contains potentially offensive language.
Ramsey never paid his child support when his wife divorced him after repeated beatings. He was charged with assault following three separate counts of domestic violence, and convicted on all three.
Raw Story reported that he was charged and found guilty in 1997, 1998 and 2003. Finally, his wife filed for divorce in 2003, mentioning “extreme cruelty” as one of the reasons for dumping him.
Before that, Ramsey has also been convicted on drug charges, trespassing, and receiving stolen property.
He was able to save the kidnapped girls, now young women, by knocking down a door after hearing Berry call out for him.
“I go on the porch, I go on the porch, she says, ‘Help me get out, I’ve been in here a long time.’ So, you know, I figured it was a domestic violence dispute. So, I open the door, we can’t get in that way,” he described the exact situation at the time.
Ramsey went on to gain Internet stardom after his act of good will and his comedian skills helped him achieve that, as displayed in the video above.