PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon man has been sentenced to life in federal prison after being convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two women in separate instances, including locking one in a cinder block cell.
Negasi Zuberi, 31, was sentenced Friday in federal court in Medford, Portland television station KGW reported. A federal jury convicted him in October on charges of kidnapping, transportation for criminal sexual activity, being a felon in possession of a weapon and attempting to break out of jail when he tried to smash through his cell window in August 2023.
“This is not a man who deserves to be around others,” a victim said at the hearing. “He shows blatant disregard and lack of care for human life.”
The Associated Press does not usually name people who have been sexually assaulted.
“Negasi Zuberi is a serial predator who committed acts of evil. He hunted women,” assistant United States Attorney Jeffrey Sweet said before Zuberi was sentenced.
In July 2023, Zuberi solicited a woman to engage in prostitution along Aurora Avenue in Seattle, authorities said. He told the woman he was an undercover officer, showed her a badge, pointed a Taser at her and placed her in handcuffs and leg irons before putting her in the back of his vehicle.
He then drove hundreds of miles to his home in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and locked the woman in a cinder block cell in his garage, according to the FBI. After the woman escaped after repeatedly banging on the cell door until it broke open, Zuberi fled and was arrested in Reno, Nevada.
Federal authorities later linked him to a second kidnapping in May 2023, in which he was convicted of abducting a woman outside a Klamath Falls bar. Prosecutors said he threatened her with a Taser, handcuffed her in the back of his vehicle and sexually assaulted her.
Zuberi had pleaded not guilty and continued to claim he was innocent during the sentencing hearing.
He waived his right to testify during the 11-day trial. He attempted to testify on the trial’s last day but was denied because he earlier waived that right.