Timberwolves guard Malik Beasley angrily aimed a rifle at a couple and their teenage child in an SUV outside his Plymouth home, where a large stash of marijuana was seized by police, according to charges filed Thursday against him and his wife.
The 23-year-old Beasley was charged in Hennepin County District Court with drug possession and threats of violence. Montana Yao, an Instagram model and the mother of a 1½-year-old son with Beasley, was charged with a felony drug count.
Both were charged by summons and not immediately available to respond to the allegations. Defense attorneys Steve Haney and Ryan Pacyga issued a statement saying that “we are cooperating with the law enforcement investigation and will carefully review the discovery in the coming days.”
The Timberwolves released a statement Thursday afternoon that read: “We are aware of the charges involving Malik Beasley. We take these allegations seriously and will let the legal process run its course.”
Beasley is due in court on Nov. 19. Yao’s first appearance is scheduled for Dec. 29.
The charges come one day after Wolves executive vice president Sachin Gupta addressed the team’s salary-cap situation and said there should be room to sign Beasley, who is a restricted free agent and averaged 20.7 points in 14 games with the Wolves this past season. Wolves management has been asked to comment on the specifics of Thursday’s revelations.
According to the charges against Beasley and related court documents:
A couple was on the annual Parade of Homes tour on Sept. 26 with their 13-year-old child and pulled up in an SUV to the home Beasley and Yao rent but saw it was roped off. While pulled over to look up another home to visit, Beasley tapped on the vehicle’s window and pointed a rifle at them.
“Get the [expletive] off my property!” Beasley said.
Beasley continued to train his “all-black assault rifle with a forehand grip” and a scope at the SUV as it drove off, the criminal complaint read.
Police searched the home and turned up a 12-gauge shotgun, a handgun and an automatic rifle that matched the description given by the couple in the SUV. The officers also tended to the child of Beasley and Yao in the home.
Officers detected an overwhelming odor of marijuana and soon located more than 1¾ pounds of the drug in the basement living room and main floor office. Next to the stash was a notebook with instructions on how to smoke the drug.
The home’s interior was equipped with several surveillance cameras. Police seized video recordings from the cameras. The images showed Beasley grabbing a rifle and making “sounds like shots were being fired.” He then went outside about the time the people in the SUV were confronted.
Later that same afternoon, Beasley appeared on video “yelling, laughing and making shots fired sounds with his friends,” the charging document read. Beasley was arrested that same day and later released. Yao has yet to be arrested.
The charges against Yao, 23, say she told officers that all of the leafy marijuana belonged to her and that she bought it from a medical marijuana outlet.
However, she could not say where the purchase was made or produce proof of the transaction. Possessing marijuana in its original leafy form in Minnesota is illegal.
The 6,600-square-foot home Beasley and Yao occupy sits on a bluff off Mooney Lake and includes an indoor basketball court. The builder recently had it for sale with an asking price of $2.2 million.
In August 2019, when Beasley was with the Denver Nuggets, he and Denver Broncos football player Su’a Cravens brawled in the lobby of a Denver apartment building. According to tabloid television’s TMZ, the clash had to do with Yao.
Star Tribune staff writer Chris Hine contributed to this report.
