A man who posed as an undercover police officer kidnapped a woman in Seattle, drove her to his home in Oregon and locked her in a makeshift cell in his garage before she managed to escape, the FBI said Wednesday.
The man, Negasi Zuberi, faces a federal interstate kidnapping charge, and authorities said they are looking for additional victims after linking him to violent sexual assaults in at least four more states.
“This woman was kidnapped, chained, sexually assaulted and locked in a cinderblock cell,” Stephanie Shark, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Portland field office, said in a news release. “Police say she beat the door with her hands until they were bloody in order to break free. Her quick thinking and will to survive may have saved other women from a similar nightmare.”
After the woman escaped from his home in Klamath Falls, Zuberi, 29, fled the southern Oregon city of roughly 22,000 people but was arrested by state police in Reno, Nevada, the next afternoon, the FBI said. Court records do not list an attorney who might speak on his behalf.
According to the FBI, Zuberi also went by the names Sakima, Justin Hyche and Justin Kouassi, and he has lived in multiple states since 2016, possibly including California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Alabama and Nevada.
According to a criminal complaint filed in US district court in Oregon, Zuberi solicited the woman, identified only as Adult Victim 1 in the early-morning hours of 15 July to engage in prostitution along Aurora Avenue in Seattle, an area known for sex work. Afterward, Zuberi told the woman he was an undercover officer, showed her a badge, pointed a stun gun at her and placed her in handcuffs and leg irons before putting her in the back of his vehicle, the complaint said.
He then drove the woman hundreds of miles to his home in Oregon, stopping along the way to sexually assault her, the complaint states.
When they arrived, about seven hours after he first encountered her in Seattle, he put her in a makeshift cell he had built in his garage – a cinderblock cell with a door of metal bars – and said he was leaving to do paperwork, the complaint says.
The woman “briefly slept and awoke to the realization that she would likely die if she did not attempt to escape”, the complaint states.
She started punching the metal door and broke some of its welded joints, creating a small opening which she climbed through, Rob Reynolds, the Klamath Falls police Capt, said at a news conference.
“When she was trying to escape the cell itself, she repeatedly punched the door with her own hands,” Reynolds said. “She had several lacerations along her knuckles.”
The victim saw Zuberi’s vehicle parked in the garage, opened it, grabbed his gun and then took off, leaving blood on a wooden fence she climbed over to escape, the complaint said. She flagged down a passing driver who called 911.
Two Nevada state patrol officers tracked Zuberi down at a Walmart parking lot in Reno the next day, the complaint says. He was in his car holding one of his children in the front seat while talking to his wife, who was standing outside the vehicle. He initially refused to get out of the car when the officers asked, and instead cut himself with a sharp object and tried to destroy his phone, the complaint states.
Zuberi eventually surrendered and the child was unharmed, it says.
According to the complaint, investigators interviewed Zuberi’s wife and neighbors. Authorities declined to say if there was any indication that any of them had been aware of the Seattle woman’s abduction.
Investigators said that when they searched Zuberi’s home and garage, they found the makeshift cell, the woman’s purse and handwritten notes. One of the notes was titled “Operation Take Over,” and included a bullet list with entries that read “Leave phone at home” and “Make sure they don’t have a bunch of ppl (sic) in their life. You don’t want any type of investigation.”
Another handwritten document appeared to include a rough sketch for an underground structure using concrete blocks, foam insulation and waterproof concrete.
The FBI said Zuberi may have used other methods of gaining control of women, including drugging their drinks. The agency said it was setting up a website asking anyone who believes they may have been a victim to come forward.
English (US)