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Last night, we told you how 21 year-old Jafari Castro, and 18 year-old Gilbert Franklin Jr. were in police custody.  Today they were joined by 21 year old James Young Jr who turned himself in this morning.  Â On Monday, police named them as the main suspects in the beatdown of Kevin Brown.

Well today, 10 days after Brown’s savage beating on San Pedro, Police escorted all 3 alleged perpetrators to the Magistrate’s Court for their arraignment.

They were taken before Acting Chief Magistrate Sharon Frazer, who read them a single charge of harm. Police had said that they intended to charged Gilbert Franklin with the additional offense of aggravated assault, but that didn’t happen before their arraignment today.

So, after that single charged was read, all 3 men pled not guilty. There was no objection from the prosecution, and so, they were granted bail of $1,500 each. It’s a small bail and a minor charge and so most likely, they are all at home tonight. But, these young men are now facing a criminal charge, which means that they must establish their innocence in the court if they want to acquitted.

This evening, after the arraignment, Richard “Dickieâ€￾ Bradley, gave is a synopsis of the case against his clients,  and here’s what he had to say:

Richard "Dickie" Bradley - Attorney for Defendants
"Magistrate read the charges, asked if they understood what was being said to them and because it is a magistrate court matter they were called upon to plea whether or not they were guilty or not guilty for which both Franklin and Young replied the negative, they are not guilty. It is a single charge for all 3 persons that the cause of harm to Kevin Brown 10 days ago at night in La Isla Bonita and it arose out of some fight between two groups of young men. What Donald Trump would call the fake facts from the police is that they looked at surveillance camera but the words are the surveillance camera was viewed, they didn't say they saw anything on the surveillance camera because had they seen anything it would not have taken 10 days to bring this single charge of causing a harm. Now we will have to wait for the disclosure but we don't know if it' is 3 harm or 1 harm. The police are saying that Kevin Brown was hit with a fire extinguisher which caused him to become unconscious. This matter arose out of some dispute over jewelry, I know because the family had shared with me that in fact Gilbert Franklin had a very expensive gold jewelry on his hand which somebody grabbed and it gone missing and that may have been one of the cause of the event however they have told me that it is the other side that went to the Resort that they were  and started what was the 2nd problem and also in the case of Gilbert Franklin, it is fake news to say they went and found him anywhere on Southside. They offered the moment it came on the news that police had decided they would bring charges against the 3 young men, Gilbert Franklin made contact with the police as well as James Young offering to go into the police station, they were told there is no magistrate in the island of San Pedro and that arrangement would be made for them to come in on another day however the police could not wait because I understand they wanted be on the news last night so they went and they found Gilbert Franklin at his family's home on Dunn Street, not no Southside. So I wanted to clear that up. It is a sad thing to see young people get into a fight to a stage where one is hurt that he has to be hospitalized and there is bad blood between young people because we want our young people to move away from that type of thing. This is a single charge of harm, there is no aggravated assault with any weapon or anything, somebody hit Mr. Brown in a fight, we will find out who hit because the 3 of them can't throw punch to hit him the same time and 3 of them can't hold on to any fire extinguisher to cause it."

They must return to court on October 18, where it is expected that the prosecution will provide them with disclosure. 

Several of Jafari Castro’s family members were at court to support him, and they made their distaste for the media clear. At the end of the arraignment, Jafari’s older brother, Jumoke Castro, got into a confrontation with the Krem News’ camera man. Castro suspected he was being video taped, which he was very much against, and he and the cameraman had a bit of hard talk before he left. Ironically, his attempts to prevent being featured on the evening news is exactly what caused him to end up in the news anyway.