A man arrested last year after a woman escaped from a makeshift concrete block cell where she was being held 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 sheet. A number of documents in the federal case in Oregon’s U.S. District Court were sealed.
Zuberi, 30, was arrested in July 2023 after a sex worker fled his home in Klamath Falls, Oregon, calling for help. Zuberi kidnapped the woman while posing as an undercover officer, threatened her with a Taser, handcuffed her and put her in the backseat of her car, the FBI said.
He drove her about 450 miles to his rental home in Oregon and is accused of stopping along the way to sexually assault her, the FBI said.
The woman was held in Zuberi’s garage in a room made of concrete blocks with a metal door that could not be opened from the inside, officials said. She was eventually able to escape and a driver she flagged down called 911, according to the FBI.
Zuberi was arrested on July 16, 2023, in Reno, Nevada, after a 45-minute standoff with police.
The following month, FBI agents investigating Zuberi told the public he may be linked to other sexual assaults and accused him of targeting sex workers. He has lived in 12 states over the past decade, the FBI said, using the aliases “Sakima,” “Justin Hyche” and “Justin Kouassi.”
Investigators found a note in Zuberi’s home indicating he was planning other attacks, officials said. The FBI said at the time that one of the most “chilling” aspects of the note was that he wrote, “Make sure there aren’t many 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 ran away from him in the cinderblock cell.
“While being held by Zuberi, his first victim observed stacked cinder blocks in his garage that he later used to build the cell in which he held his second victim,” the prosecutor’s office said.
A second kidnapping charge was added to his case as part of a superseding indictment in February.
The kidnapping charge is the most serious of the convictions, carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Attorneys listed for Zuberi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Based on his court docket, no sentencing date appears to have been scheduled.
NBC News previously reported that the mother of Zuberi’s two children claimed he threatened to kill her and said she had bruises from him “slapping,” “restraining” and “slapping” her.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
