PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A woman who escaped her kidnapper by punching her way out of a homemade cinder block cell at a home in southern Oregon likely saved other…
A woman who escaped her kidnapper by punching her way out of a homemade cinder block cell at a home in southern Oregon likely saved other women from a similar fate, authorities said, by alerting them to a man they now suspect in sexual assaults in at least four more states.
Negasi Zuberi posed as an undercover police officer when he kidnapped the woman in Seattle, drove hundreds of miles to his home in Klamath Falls and locked her in the garage cell until she bloodied her hands breaking the door to escape, the FBI said Wednesday.
Zuberi, 29, faces federal charges that include interstate kidnapping, and authorities said they are looking for additional victims after linking him to the other assaults. Authorities have not yet said publicly in which states those attacks took place.
“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 fled the city of roughly 22,000 people but was arrested by state police in Reno, Nevada, the next afternoon, the FBI said.
Court records did not yet list an attorney who might speak on Zuberi’s behalf. He has not yet been assigned a public defender in Oregon as he’s still being transferred from Nevada, which can take several weeks, said Kevin Sonoff, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Oregon.
A grand jury in Portland on Wednesday returned an indictment charging Zuberi with interstate kidnapping and transporting an individual across state lines with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. He could face up to life in prison if convicted.
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.
