A man who was arrested last year after a woman escaped a makeshift cinderblock cell where was holding her has been convicted of kidnapping and other charges.
Negasi Zuberi was found guilty of two counts of kidnapping, two counts of felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, two counts of felon in possession of ammunition, and one count of transportation for criminal sexual activity, according to the jury verdict form. A number of documents in the federal case in the U.S. District Court of Oregon were sealed.
Zuberi, 30, was arrested in July 2023 after a sex worker fled his Klamath Falls, Oregon, home and called for help. Zuberi kidnapped the woman while posing as an undercover officer, threatening her with a taser, handcuffing her and putting her in the backseat of her car, according to the FBI.
He drove her roughly 450 miles to his Oregon rental home and is accused of stopping along the way to sexually assault her, the FBI has said.
The woman was kept inside Zuberi’s garage in a room made of cinderblocks with a metal door that couldn’t be opened from the inside, officials said. She was eventually was able to escape and a driver she flagged down called 911, according to the FBI.
Zuberi was arrested in Reno, Nevada, on July 16, 2023, after a 45-minute standoff with police.
The next month, FBI agents investigating Zuberi told the public that he may be connected to other sexual assaults and accused him of targeting sex workers. He lived in 12 states over the last decade, the FBI said, and used the aliases “Sakima,” “Justin Hyche” and “Justin Kouassi.”
Investigators found a note at Zuberi’s residence that indicated he had plans for other assaults, officials said. The FBI said at the time that one of the most “chilling” aspects of the note was that he wrote “make sure that they don’t have a bunch of people in their lives.”
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Oregon, Zuberi kidnapped and sexually assaulted a woman six weeks before the woman in the cinderblock cell ran from him.
“While being held by Zuberi, his first victim observed stacked cinder blocks in his garage that he later used to construct the cell where he detained his second victim,” the prosecutor’s office said.
A second kidnapping charge was added to his case as a result as part of a superseding indictment in February.
The kidnapping charges are the most serious of the convictions, which carry a maximum sentence of life in federal prison.
Attorneys listed for Zuberi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A sentencing date does not appear to be scheduled based on his court docket.
NBC News previously reported that the mother of Zuberi’s two children alleged that he threatened to kill her and that she said she had bruises from him “hitting,” “restraining” and “beating” her.
