Ariel Castro Victims to Receive Money, Benefits, Aid from State After Bill Passes in House Committee

A House committee passed a bill on Wednesday that would offer compensation to the three women kidnapped by Ariel Castro for more than eight years at his house in Cleveland.

Three Republican members of the board opposed the bill, which would compensate Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight $25,000 annually for the amount of time they were held hostage by Castro, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Castro, who lured the three women into his house when they were still in their teens, was recently found dead in his prison cell after he'd hung himself.

"I don't know how you ever make up for the time they've lost in their lives," Grove City Rep. Cheryl Grossman, who sponsored the bill with Rep. John Barnes, said.

The proposal would also give the women the opportunity to bill yearly health-related costs to the state, also allowing the governor to adjust future payments. Additionally, Cleveland State University would give five years of free instruction to the women the aid them with remedial lessons, the Dispatch reported.

Opponents of the bill acknowledged that the proposal had good intentions and "more than most, pulls on the heartstrings," but the state has already given money from a fund that helps victims of crime. Last year, around 3,600 claims were each given an average compensation of $2,714. This bill would administer more than 100 times that amount in total to the victims of Castro's crimes.

"I don't know how to evaluate one victim verses another," Rep. Matt Lynch told the board. "They're all deserving of our support. It strikes me as somehow improper to single out particular victims."

But Grossman insisted that DeJesus, Berry and Knight, who were raped, beaten, locked up for days at a time, and deprived of food, were part of a particularly heinous series of crimes.

"They will need assistance, one way or another, for most of their lives," she said. "We can be proactive in trying to provide the means and tools to proceed in their lives or we can look for entitlements. I'd rather give them the tools to succeed."

Lynch replied that this move might prompt people from donating money to groups like the Cleveland Courage Fund, which has raised at least $1.2 million for the three women, because they will see that the government can take care of it instead.

"We're not giving our own money," he told the committee. "We're giving taxpayers' money. In that sense, it's not charity."