toledoblade.com --

An Orthodox Jew imprisoned in the Toledo Correctional Institution yesterday accused the state of interfering with his religious practices by forcing him to shave his beard and sideburns.

Ralph Beasley, who is serving a life sentence in the North Toledo prison for murder, filed a lawsuit yesterday against state officials in U.S. District Court in Toledo.

Beasley, 52, claims that his constitutional rights were violated when Khelleh Kontek, warden of the facility, ordered him to shave his beard and sideburns.

Mr. Kontek and Reginald Wilkinson, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, were named as defendants in the lawsuit, which was assigned to Judge James Carr.

Harland Britz, a Toledo attorney who filed the complaint, said Beasley, a practicing Orthodox Jew, was transferred to the Toledo facility in March, 2004 from the Marion facility, which provides a religious-living program for inmates. It allowed for Beasley to keep his beard and sideburns.

But when Beasley arrived at the Toledo prison, he was told that he had to cut his beard and sideburns because departmental policy prohibits beards longer than one-half inch on inmates.

According to the lawsuit, Beasley allowed an inmate to cut his facial hair even though he believed he was entitled to retain the beard and sideburns as a practice of his Jewish faith.

Mr. Britz said Beasley has resumed keeping his beard and sideburns untrimmed.

Beasley was sent to prison in 1991 after being convicted in Cuyahoga County of murder and using a gun in the crime. He will be eligible for parole in four years.

Andrea Dean, spokesman for the state prisons department, said the restriction on beard lengths is intended to prevent inmates from using facial hair as a place to hide weapons or contraband, and not intended to harass inmates.

She said inmates can ask for a waiver to exceed the hair-length policy.

"We have allowed inmates to have beards of a certain length due to their religious beliefs," she said.

The lawsuit cites a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld a federal law requiring state prisons to accommodate the religious beliefs of inmates and ruled that a permissible accommodation of religion does not violate the separation of church and state.

In a May 31 decision, the justices agreed unanimously with several Ohio inmates who complained that they were denied access to religious literature and the opportunity to conduct services.

Ms. Dean said the inmate complaints were being reviewed on a case-by-case basis to determine if the issues are legitimate.

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