An Oregon man accused of holding a woman captive in a makeshift cell in his rental garage has learned his fate.
Negasi Zuberi, 30, was found guilty Friday of kidnapping, transporting a victim for criminal sexual activity and unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon announced.
The verdict came after less than four hours of deliberations, following a weeks-long trial in which jurors heard from the two women Zuberi had kidnapped and sexually assaulted for hours at a time. The Oregonian reports.
He was accused of taking the two 21-year-old women back to his home in Klamath Falls, one in May 2023 and another in July 2023, and keeping them locked up.
But police only arrested Zuberi after the second woman managed to force her way out of a cinder-block cell inside her garage and flag down a driver.
The cinder block cell was built inside Zuberi’s home in Klamath Falls.
Authorities have said Zuberi first kidnapped and raped a local woman months ago. I was celebrating Cinco de Mayo at a bar in the city.
The woman claimed that Zuberi had also handcuffed her hands and legs, Tasered her, assaulted her and raped her before driving her home.
While she was in the car, Zuberi hit her several times in the head and fired the Taser into her ribs, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Lichvarcik said.
The prosecutor added that the woman was forced to have sex in the back of her car several times.
She claimed in court that she suffered a concussion from the physical attack and had to repeat the names of friends and family to stay awake. Oregon Public Broadcasting Reports.
“I really thought I was dying,” the woman told the jury, noting that a part of her expected to die.
Negasi Zuberi, 30, was found guilty Friday of kidnapping, transporting a victim for criminal sexual activity and unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon.
The woman went on to claim that Zuberi told her that his plan was to impregnate many women and form an army with their children.
She said she had to make up a story about having to give her sick dog medication to get Zuberi to release her after 13 hours of being held captive, according to The Oregonian.
The woman said Zuberi then took her to an ATM, where he gave her $300 and warned her not to report what happened.
But the brave woman told authorities days later about the kidnapping and sexual assault.
Unfortunately, she said, the officer who interviewed her did not take away the dirty clothing she wore during the assault or a sketch she made of her attacks.
The officer also didn’t call her again, the victim testified, saying she had to call police three or four more times before another officer told her the department would alert her if there were any developments in the case.
“From her perspective, the local police didn’t take it seriously, didn’t follow up and left her really frustrated,” Lichvarcik told the court.
Pictured: The prosecutor says the black metal door Zuberi locked his two victims behind. Here, it is shown from inside the makeshift cell.
Months later, the second victim met Zuberi 450 miles from his home in Klamath Falls in Seattle, Washington, on the night of July 15, 2023.
He approached her and solicited her for prostitution, but after the sex was completed, he flashed a fake police badge and claimed to be an undercover cop, according to an affidavit.
He then threatened her with a Taser before securing her with handcuffs and shackles and throwing her into the back of his Honda Pilot, she says.
From there, Zuberi drove more than 400 miles back to Klamath Falls while the victim asked “why the trip was taking so long.”
She finally realized that Zuberi was not actually a police officer (and that she had been kidnapped) when she looked at her cell phone screen and noticed that the GPS said they were two hours and four minutes from their destination.
In the photo: The interior of the cell in which Zuberi allegedly held two women.
During that trip, Zuberi also stopped to sexually assault the woman. He later stopped again to cover the woman’s face with a sweatshirt, prosecutors claimed.
Once they arrived at her home, prosecutors said Zuberi locked the woman inside the cinder block cell.
She fell asleep briefly, but “woke up and realized she would probably die if she did not try to escape,” according to the affidavit.
At that point, the 120-pound woman began pounding on the cell’s metal door until she was able to squeeze her body through a narrow opening to escape the next morning.
He removed a gun from Zuberi’s vehicle before scaling a fence outside the home where he had been held against his will for hours, the prosecutor said.
The prosecutor said he was bleeding but had the means to stop a motorist, shouting, “He raped me!”
The victim was later taken to a local hospital for a sexual assault examination and then led authorities to Zuberi’s home.
There, agents found a handwritten note titled Operation Takeover, which prosecutors described as a list of “targets” of women in their 20s and notes about how he planned to “build an army.”
The note read in part, “Leave your phone at home” and “Make sure you don’t have too many people in your life.” You don’t want any kind of investigation.
“Dig a hole down 100 feet,” said another.
Officers also found the cell inside Zuberi’s garage “was made of cinder blocks” and a metal door was “installed upside down so it could not be opened from the inside.”
Zuberi was eventually arrested in a Walmart parking lot in Reno, Nevada, with his family.
He was inside his Honda Pilot at the time, holding his son when, according to prosecutors, he “cut himself on a sharp object that caused him to bleed profusely” and “tried to destroy his phone.”
He then allegedly told Reno police, “It looks like my suicide attempt isn’t working.”
In the photo: the note found inside Zuberi’s residence.
Another handwritten document appeared to include a sketch of an underground structure using cinder blocks, foam insulation and waterproof concrete.
But his defense attorneys argued that the victims’ stories were unreliable and did not match the evidence.
Attorney Michael Bertholf noted that the first woman was never tested for STDs after the sexual assault and urged jurors to ask themselves why the prosecution was presenting so much testimony that was not directly related to the charges against Zuberi.
“This case is a case of government overreach,” he said, according to The Oregonian.
However, the defense did not call any witnesses during the trial.
Instead, they played images Zuberi captured on camera from the back of his Honda Pilot on May 6, 2023, which they claimed showed the first victim and Zuberi having consensual sex.
Attorney Amy E. Potter noted that the woman called Zuberi attractive and that Zuberi complied when she told him to stop recording.
The woman, however, testified that Zuberi filmed what he called an “insurance” video, demanding that she lie on top of him and pretend she was having a good time.
Prosecutors then argued that he created the video to “silence” or blackmail the woman, threatening to play it for others if she ever reported the assault.
“He made her fears come true” by performing it for a 12-person jury, Lichvarcik said.
“He’s taking advantage of people he thinks are weak, he’s taking advantage of people he thinks are vulnerable, and he’s judged very badly.”
The victims said they were kept inside their Klamath Falls home for hours.
Zuberi had previously been convicted of assault in California for soliciting a 16-year-old girl for sex and then beating her in a remote area of Alameda County.
He now faces life in prison on the kidnapping charge, up to 10 years for criminal activity and up to 15 years behind bars for illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.
His sentencing is now scheduled for January 16.
Meanwhile, he still faces a pending charge of attempted escape from the Jackson County Jail.
Zuberi is accused of using an improvised screw-shaped device to hit and break glass in his cell on Aug. 22, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by The Oregonian.
He then allegedly covered the devastated girl with books and paper in an attempt to hide it, but the device was later found attached to her sandal.
