On the stand in the courtroom at Medford’s James A. Redden U.S. Courthouse, a 22-year-old Klamath Falls woman said she felt ignored by local police when she reported her alleged rape and kidnapping by Negasi Zuberi in May of last year. She claimed local officers were reluctant to follow-up and didn’t take evidence she had carefully kept, including her bloodied clothes.
The entrance to the U.S. District courtroom in Medford.
Roman Battaglia / JPR
On Wednesday, jurors got the chance to hear that woman’s story. They looked to be listening closely as she described being taken by Zuberi after celebrating Cinco de Mayo at a Klamath Falls bar. She went on to claim that Zuberi shackled her wrists and ankles, tased, beat and raped her. At one point he fired a gun through the open passenger window, she claimed, with the spent casing landing on her lap.
She said Zuberi drove her to his house, covering her face with a sweatshirt and blanket, where she alleges she saw a pile of cinder blocks in the garage. Concussed from the physical assault, she said she repeated the names of friends and family in her head to stay awake.
“I genuinely thought I was dying,” the witness recalled. She said part of her was hoping she did die.
She alleged Zuberi told her that his plan was to impregnate many women and raise an army with their children. She also claimed Zuberi forced her to act in a video of the rape so that it might look consensual for authorities.
Eventually, she said, Zuberi took her to an ATM, handed her $300 and let her out of his car. He threatened to kill her and her family if she told police, she said, as well as release the video of her having sex with him, warning her that “Your body will never be just yours again.”
But the woman did report the alleged crimes. Although she said she wasn’t brought in by officers until Zuberi had been arrested over two months later for abducting and raping a Seattle woman. That woman claims Zuberi tried to keep her in a cinder-block cell before she escaped.
Earlier this week, prosecutors played video of Zuberi’s arrest in a parking lot of a Reno, Nevada Walmart. Approached by six police cars, Zuberi seemed incredulous when officers told him he was being arrested for a probation violation.
“What about that other sh–t,” the court heard him say in a body-cam recording.
At first he refused to exit his vehicle, the same type both alleged victims accuse him of using during their abduction, as one of his children sat inside.
“If I get out of the car, my life is done,” he said.
Police testified that Zuberi had cut his leg in a possible attempt of suicide during the standoff.
“It looks like my attempt to kill myself is not working,” Zuberi told an officer at the time.
He faces counts of kidnapping, transportation for criminal sexual activity and gun charges. The trial is expected to last through October.