Accused rapist serial Joseph Beaty walked out of his house and immediately found himself in handcuffs Friday afternoon.
Neighbors looked on as Irving SWAT officers made the arrest at his home on Tudor Lane in Irving.
“There's kids everywhere,” said neighbor Monica Cuff. “I have three of my own. So it's really relieving and I'm thankful it was done quite fast and nobody got hurt.”
State District Judge Rick Magnis issued a warrant Friday afternoon ordering Beaty's arrest after evidence came to light that he was trying to tamper with his electronic monitor and had been seen walking in the neighborhood in violation of the conditions of his house arrest.
Beaty had been released two days earlier on personal recognizance bonds by Magnis after the Dallas-based Fifth Court of Appeals concluded that he was indigent and he could not come up with the money for $250,000 in bonds. He had been in jail since August 2015.
He has been indicted in two 2009 rapes of prostitutes at knife-point. In a third case, he's accused of raping a woman in 2014 when he worked as the manager of halfway house.
Beaty is set for a bond hearing Tuesday where Magnis will decide if he should stay in jail until his February trial.
Jasmine Crockett, Beaty’s attorney, spoke to WFAA earlier Friday before he was taken back into custody. She accused the prosecutor on the case of being on a witch hunt against her client.
“He actually did a variety of things to attempt to keep my client in custody unlawfully,” she said.
With hours of Beaty’s Wednesday release from jail, Robert Villarreal spotted him in the neighborhood about the time that kids were getting out of school.
“I saw the gentleman walking up the street going toward the school and I kind of looked at him and realized, you know he didn't look kosher to me,” Villarreal said. “I normally know most of the neighbors here."
Villarreal says it appeared that Beaty was following a couple of the young women. He saw him again Thursday around the same time.
“He was sitting right there at the steps just looking at the kids because they had a little football game going on, so I sat across the street just to keep an eye on him,” Villarreal said.
He did not know who Beaty was at the time until WFAA informed him.
Beaty came to the attention of police after DPD began analyzing untested rape kits in 2015.
In the March 2009 case, a woman told police that Beaty picked her up, drove her to a secluded area, pulled out a knife, ordered her to “get naked,” and then raped her.
Several months later, another woman says he picked her up and they made an arrangement that he would pay her for sex. She also says he drove her a secluded area and began to choke her before pulling a knife and raping her. She later picked him out of a lineup.
When questioned by police, he admitted having sex with her but denied that it was sexual assault.
He told detectives that he has “engaged in sexual acts with prostitutes for several years and has never assaulted any of them.” He denied displaying a gun or a knife or raping any of them.
Beaty was unable to explain why so many women “who don’t know each other would be accusing him of a sexual offense with similar details,” court documents state.
Court documents also reveal that Beaty previously worked as a manager of a halfway house.
In November 2014, a resident of the home told police that Beaty gave her alcohol and marijuana. She says he later crawled into bed with her and she awoke with no pants and was bleeding vaginally.
The woman reported the alleged assault two days later.
She said she did not come forward sooner because the suspect was the house manager and she was “embarrassed about partaking in alcohol and drugs as she had been in recovery prior to this for some time,” court documents state.
Beaty told police he had provided alcohol and had sex with her, but claimed it was consensual.
Even after the higher court’s ruling, prosecutors had sought to keep him in custody.
Authorities tracked down a woman who had reported being attacked by him in November 2014.
The woman had previously told police that a man in a black SUV had picked her up and agreed to pay her $40 for sex. She says he drove her to a car wash, threw a dollar at her, and told her that it was all she was getting.
When she tried to flee, she says he grabbed her and raped her. She gave police a license plate, but she refused to help with the investigation.
At the time, she refused to go to the hospital or help with the investigation.
Irving officers questioned Beaty back then. He told officers at the time that he had sex with a West Dallas prostitute, but denied that it was rape. Beaty also told the officers that he has a problem with prostitutes.
When authorities tracked her down this month, she agreed to move forward with the case. Because of the higher court’s ruling, the judge decided that he would go ahead and release him.
But Magnis ordered that he be under house arrest and not have contact with his underage stepdaughter.
On Thursday, prosecutors had filed a motion seeking to have his bonds held insufficient.
The motion detailed conversations he had with his wife and stepdaughter. They contend the conversations show he planned to ignore the judge’s conditions.
The motion states that he spoke by telephone with his stepdaughter from jail after he had been told not to have any contact with her.
In the first conversation, his wife tells him that authorities will be “watching us like a hawk.”
He indicates his intention that the stepdaughter will still remain in the house, even though they’ve told the judge that she will be living elsewhere, according to the court documents.
In the second call, he told his wife that he doesn’t care if he’s caught violating the court order because the worst thing that can happen is he could get picked up and taken back to jail.
He also told her that they can hide the fact that the stepdaughter is still living there.
She told him she doesn’t think that will work out well. He’s then documented as telling her, “We did it in the CPS case. I just wish you would trust me sometimes.”
Crockett, Beaty’s attorney, accused the prosecutor of acting unethically when he filed that case.
“That is old and the state has no intention of prosecuting that,” she said. “That’s just very disingenuous on the part of the prosecutor.”
She also said that her client could not be held accountable for things he said in the conversation with his wife.
“We don’t get punished for the ideas that we have, or even our intentions,” Crockett said. “We get punished when we actually do something. The prosecutor filed this prematurely. What he should have done was waited to see if he carried out his plan.”
Crockett said her client denies forcing any women into a sexual act.
“Now there’s no games that we’re trying to play about DNA,” she said. “It is what it is.”
Court documents outline three other alleged sexual assaults involving Beaty.
In 2008, a woman says she was leaving a club when a man grabbed her and put her in his car. She says he held her down and raped her.
The following year, a woman told police she accepted a ride from a man, who took her to a secluded area and raped her.
When both rape kits were tested in 2015, the DNA of the suspect matched Beaty.
In the third case, a Tarrant County grand jury declined to indict him.
That involved a woman who told police that a man gave her a ride, drove her behind a warehouse in Arlington, and raped her at knife point in 2013. He was again connected to the case through DNA.