Woman’s escape from cinder block cell may have spared others from similar nightmare, FBI says

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A Klamath Falls man is accused of posing as an undercover police officer, kidnapping a woman from Seattle, sexually abusing her and driving her to his home, where he locked her in a homemade cinderblock cell in his garage, according to a federal affidavit unsealed Wednesday.

Negasi Zuberi, 29, also known as Justin Joshua Hyche, was indicted on charges of interstate kidnapping and transporting a woman with intent to engage in sexual activity. He was arrested in Nevada last month and is expected to be returned to Oregon, where he’ll face prosecution.

The woman was able to escape from the cell by repeatedly beating on a metal screen security door and ripping through it with her hands until they bled, and now Zuberi has been linked to violent sexual assaults in at least three other states, according to the FBI and Klamath Falls police.

“Her will to survive may have actually saved many other women,” said Stephanie Shark, assistant special agent in charge of Oregon’s FBI.

The disturbing evidence collected by investigators so far “points to an individual’s ongoing and escalating pattern of violence targeting women in multiple states,” Shark said.

Zuberi has lived in 10 states over the last 10 years, and FBI investigators said they suspect there could be other sexual assault victims. In addition to Oregon, he has lived in California, Washington, Colorado, Utah, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Alabama and Nevada since August 2016.

Investigators said they haven’t found any connection between Zuberi and a series of women found dead this year in and around Portland. A Portland man has been identified as a person of interest in the suspicious deaths but faces no charges. Police haven’t said how the women died.

Zuberi was arrested July 16 in Reno, a day after the kidnapping, after Nevada state patrol officers located him in a Walmart parking lot with his wife and one of his children, according to the affidavit. He was taken into custody after a 45-minute standoff, the FBI said.

He initially refused to get out of his car, cut himself with a sharp object and attempted to destroy his cellphone before he was taken into custody, according to the FBI. Zuberi asserted his right to remain silent during a federal court appearance in Nevada, court records show.

“Some cases alarm even the most seasoned investigators,” Shark said, adding that Zuberi’s case is “that kind of case.”

KIDNAPPING IN SEATTLE

Shortly after midnight on July 15, Zuberi approached a Washington woman near Aurora Avenue in Seattle and solicited her for sex, according to the affidavit.

After having sex with the woman, Zuberi flashed a badge, claimed to be an undercover cop, pointed a black-and-yellow Taser stun gun at the woman, handcuffed her and put iron shackles on her legs before moving her to the back seat of his car, an FBI agent wrote in the affidavit.

Zuberi claimed he was taking the woman to a police station but then drove south on Interstate 5 into Oregon, according to the affidavit. The woman spotted a map app on Zuberi’s cellphone and noticed it showed him as “2 hours and 4 minutes away” from his destination, leading her to recognize at that point that he wasn’t an officer and she was being kidnapped, according to the affidavit.

During the 450-mile trip to southern Oregon, he stopped and forced the woman to have sex, according to the affidavit.

About 7 a.m. that day, he pulled over at a truck stop north of Klamath Falls, pulled a hooded sweatshirt over the woman’s face and then drove her to his home in Klamath Falls, the affidavit said.

He placed her in a “makeshift cell” he had built in his garage made of cinder blocks and locked the metal door, according to the FBI. The woman, fearing for her life, repeatedly banged on the door, according to the affidavit.

She had been locked in the cell, illuminated by a single overhead lightbulb, for “at least a couple of hours” before she was able to bend the metal of a security screen door of the cell and crawl through a small opening, according to Klamath Falls Police Capt. Rob Reynolds.

Once out of the cell, she saw Zuberi’s car in the garage, opened one of the car’s doors, grabbed a handgun from inside and ran out, climbed over a fence and ran down the street, screaming for help before a passing motorist picked her up and called 911, according to the FBI and Klamath police. The woman was taken to Sky Lakes Medical Center for a forensic examination and treatment, the affidavit said.

“If she didn’t do what she did, we wouldn’t be here today,” Reynolds said.

Detectives interviewed her in the hospital about 12:15 p.m. that day. Using cellphone technology, police tracked Zuberi to Reno, Nevada.

“The victim is strong and courageous, and right now she is physically OK,” Shark said. FBI victim service advocates are providing support and resources to the woman, she said.

Investigators went to the home and found blood on the wooden fence that the woman had scaled. Klamath Falls police obtained a warrant to search Zuberi’s home on July 16 and discovered the cell, according to the affidavit.

Police also found several handwritten notes, including one that had a drawing of how to dig a 100-foot deep concrete block cell with foam insulation, according to the affidavit. One note had a heading that read “Operation Take Over” and described plans to “leave phone at home” and “make sure they don’t have a bunch” of people in their life, it said. It ended, “You dont want any type of investigation,” according to a photo of the note in the affidavit.

‘QUICK THINKING’

According to the FBI, people may know Zuberi by the name “Sakima.” He also may have drugged women’s drinks and impersonated an officer before, investigators said.

The Washington woman “was kidnapped, chained, sexually assaulted, and locked in a cinderblock cell. 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,” Shark said.

“We are fortunate that this brave woman escaped and alerted authorities. Through quick law enforcement action we were able to get Zuberi in custody the next day,” she said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Lichvarcik, the prosecutor who oversees the Oregon U.S. Attorney’s Office in Medford and Eugene, said U.S. marshals are working to bring Zuberi back to Oregon.

Authorities didn’t identify the other states where they said Zuberi has been linked to sexual assaults, citing their ongoing investigation. Charges have not been filed in those cases, Shark said.

In some of the other cases, Zuberi posed as an undercover officer or solicited the services of sex workers and then violently sexually assaulted women, according to the FBI. Some of the encounters may have been filmed to make it appear as if the assault was consensual, and often the victims were threatened with retaliation if they were to notify the police, according to investigators.

A LinkedIn page under one of his aliases Sakima Zuberi, accompanied by his photo, says he had been studying cybersecurity at Klamath Community College since April of this year. It also says he was self-employed for a New Mexico-based company Forty3Organization, which provides housing rentals.

Records also show he had lived in Vancouver, Washington, last year. His landlord Abishek Kandar sought to evict him from the rental home in November, citing a list of violations that included unauthorized people inside the residence, unauthorized pit bulls on the property, the changing of the home’s locks without permission and damage to the home’s patio screen door, air conditioning insulation, door frames and patio blinds, according to court records. Someone who had contacted police in December said she felt he was “up to some shady” stuff and “about to do something bad,” according to the records.

Zuberi responded that he had only guests at the home and was fixing anything that was broken. The civil action to evict Zuberi was dismissed in January because a summons hadn’t been served properly, according to the records. Yet a judge in late April ordered the property be returned to the landlord, according to court records.

“He has caused a lot of problems to a lot of people,” Kandar said.

Prentice Gerald said he lived with Zuberi for about six months last year in the four-bedroom house in Vancouver and paid Zuberi $700 a month in rent. Gerald said he thought Zuberi was the homeowner until he later learned that wasn’t the case.

Also living in the house, he said, were Zuberi’s two young sons and their mother, along with another man and woman. He said Zuberi and his partner fought a lot and that Zuberi “was adverse to police.”

Zuberi kept about five to six pit bull puppies in a cage in the home and was selling the dogs, according to Smith and the court records.

A neighbor in Vancouver had obtained a temporary protective order against Zuberi in March. The neighbor complained that Zuberi had sent him a threatening text message that month, and had falsely claimed he had sexually harassed one of Zuberi’s acquaintances, according to a court petition. Zuberi also had threatened to harm other area residents, the petition said. At the time, Zuberi drove a gray Honda SUV, according to the petition. A judge dismissed the order on April 18 when neither Zuberi or the neighbor showed up for a scheduled hearing.

Under another alias of Hyche, Zuberi has convictions for possessing a gun in a public place in Chicago in December 2020 and a 2016 conviction in Kern County, California, for driving more than 100 mph and driving with a suspended license, records show.