A man has been convicted of kidnapping and raping two women, including holding one of his victims hostage in a soundproof cinderblock cell while his wife and child were at home.
Negasi Zuberi, 30, from Klamath Falls, Oregon, was convicted of two counts of kidnapping, transporting a victim for criminal sexual activity and illegally possessing a firearm and ammunition as a previously convicted felon, according to a statement from Oregon’s District Attorney’s office on Friday.
He faces life imprisonment at his sentencing.
Zuberi, who acted under three separate monikers – “Sakima,” “Justin Hyche,” and “Justin Kouassi” – and lived in 10 different states, detailed his chilling plans in a collection of writings and drawings in a booklet titled “Operation Take Over,” his trial heard.
One of his victims claimed that Zuberi told her his plan was to force women to have his children so he could “raise an army.”
The serial rapist abducted a woman working as a prostitute in Seattle after posing as a police officer on July 15, 2023, according to the FBI.
Pointing a taser at her, the father-of-two shackled the victim in handcuffs and leg irons before bundling her into the back seat of his car and driving her 450 miles back to his Klamath Falls residence. Zuberi was said to have made several stops to sexually assault the victim.
The woman was then locked in a dungeon Zuberi purposefully built in his garage of his North Eldorado Avenue home.
All the while, his wife and children were home, according to Law and Crime.
The makeshift cinderblock cell was accessed through a metal door which could only be opened from the outside, according to the victim’s description as per the criminal complaint.
After a brief sleep, the woman awoke to a stark realization – “she would likely die if she did not attempt to escape,” per the complaint.
The woman began punching the door with her hands until they were bloody but eventually broke through, according to a statement from Klamath Falls Police Department in August last year.
As she made her escape, she grabbed a handgun from Zuberi’s vehicle before flagging down a passing motorist who called 911, according to the DA’s office.
Reno Police Department and Nevada State Patrol officers traced the perpetrator to a Walmart car park in South Reno, Nevada, on July 16, 2023.
He was arrested after a 45-minute standoff which saw him cut himself with a knife and bleed “profusely,” the complaint said.
Officers uncovered the makeshift dungeon upon a search of Zuberi’s property.
“Leave phone at home. Make sure they don’t have a bunch of ppl in their life. You don’t want any type of investigation,” a handwritten note found in the search read.
“Dig a hole straight down 100ft,” another note said alongside a diagram.
The FBI praised the woman for “her quick thinking and will to survive” that “may have saved other women from a similar nightmare,” according to a statement made less than a month after Zuberi’s arrest.
He was charged with kidnapping and transporting a victim with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity by a Medford grand jury on August 2, 2023.
While investigating the first victim, the FBI discovered another victim six weeks prior to the July 15 kidnapping.
Zuberi approached a woman at a Klamath Falls bar celebrating Cinco de Mayo who was stranded without a ride on May 6, 2023. Zuberi offered to drive her to a friend’s house before binding the women by her wrists and ankles, according to the superseding indictment.
After the victim refused to have sex with Zuberi, he raped her several times which he recorded, prosecutors said. “Your body will never be just yours again,” Zuberi said in the tape, according to the 22-year-old victim’s testimony last Wednesday in a Medford courthouse.
The victim observed a pile of cinderblocks in Zuberi’s garage which would later be turned into the dungeon that the other victim was held in.
Zuberi eventually released the victim and said if she told the police he’d kill her family and release the tape.
“I genuinely thought I was dying,” the witness told jurors.
On February 15, 2024, a second kidnapping charge and charges for illegally possessing firearms, ammunition, and attempted escape were added by superseding indictment.
The FBI said last August that it had linked Zuberi to other violent sexual assaults in at least four states. “There could be more,” the bureau warned at the time.
