Historian on Trump indictment and holding leaders accountable

Body found in barrel identified as potential witness in case of Missouri man accused of holding woman in basement

Human remains found in a barrel in the Missouri River were identified last week as belonging to a woman considered a potential witness in the case against a Missouri man accused of holding a Black woman hostage in his basement.

During a Monday hearing seeking a bond increase for Timothy Haslett Jr., prosecutors said the woman found in the barrel, Jaynie Crosdale, “was inside” Haslett’s Excelsior Springs home before his arrest in October.

The Clay County Prosecutor’s Office did not provide further details but said it presented the evidence to the court.

Excelsior Springs police had identified Crosdale as a potential witness in Haslett’s case in January and asked the public’s help in locating her. Authorities said at the time that they believed Crosdale had “information about the investigation.”

She was later found dead after kayakers located her body in a blue barrel in the Missouri River, according to NBC affiliate KSNT of Topeka, Kansas. Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Immediately after police identified her remains last week, prosecutors filed a motion seeking a higher bond for Haslett, writing in a court filing that they had “concern for the safety of the community.” Prosecutors said Haslett’s bond of $3 million was “insufficient to insure the safety of the community and the victim.”

The court, however, ruled against increasing Haslett’s bond. His attorney did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.

The home where neighbors raised the alarm in Excelsior Springs, Mo.Sarah Plake / KSHB

Haslett was taken into custody in October after the 22-year-old unidentified victim escaped from his basement wearing a metal dog collar and ran to neighbors for help. The woman said she had been held captive and assaulted.

Lisa Johnson, a neighbor who helped the woman, said she was getting ready for work when she heard a faint “help me” from outside her front door.

“She looked straight at me and said ‘help,'” Johnson previously said.

Johnson said the woman feared that if the police were called Haslett would kill them both, but Johnson called authorities anyway.

“I understood where she was coming from at that point. But I did it anyway,” she said.

Police said they found the woman wearing a metal collar with a padlock, latex lingerie and she had duct tape around her mouth, according to a probable cause statement filed in October.

The woman said Haslett had picked her up in early September and kept her in a small room in his basement, restraining her wrists and ankles with handcuffs, the document stated. She said she had been repeatedly raped and whipped and escaped when Haslett left to take his child to school, according to the probable cause.

Haslett was indicted in February on one count of first-degree rape, four counts of first-degree sodomy, one count of first-degree kidnapping, two counts of second-degree assault and one count of endangering a child. He faces more than five life sentences in prison if convicted.

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Oregon man accused of holding woman captive in makeshift cell appeared on ‘Judge Judy’ with children’s mother

A man who officials say kidnapped and held a woman captive in a makeshift cell in his Oregon garage appeared in a 2018 episode of “Judge Judy” with the mother of his two children.

Negasi Zuberi — a 29-year-old who goes by the aliases “Sakima,” “Justin Hyche” and “Justin Kouassi” — was arrested July 16 after the woman escaped and was able to flag down help. He was charged with one count of interstate kidnapping.

Zuberi has been linked to four violent sexual assaults in at least four states, officials said, without detailing the locations.

In the episode, which is circulating on Facebook, 29-year-old Negasi Zuberi went by the alias, Justin Hyche.

He claimed that his ex-fiancée had assaulted him with a glass bottle at his apartment in June 2018 and also destroyed property at his home days later.

Zuberi and the woman had moved together from California to New York after the birth of their son but no longer lived together, they said. Their son was 21 months old.

NBC News is not identifying the woman or her children, who may be victims of abuse.

Zuberi submitted footage from the initial incident that Judge Judy watched in court.

In the footage, the woman can be heard telling Zuberi not to take their child out into the cold. She asks someone nearby to call the police and alleges that Zuberi is drunk.

It appears that the woman and Zuberi have some physical exchanges before he walks outside. A glass bottle is then heard shattering on the sidewalk.

Zuberi told the judge that he filed a police report against the woman but was arrested instead. He spent about two days in jail.

“They completely went on her side, they assumed that I assaulted her and they didn’t believe anything I said,” Zuberi told the judge.

The woman said she’d arrived at Zuberi’s home that day around 11 p.m. to pick their son up but he didn’t let her take him. She claims she didn’t throw the glass bottle at Zuberi.

Judge Judy took Zuberi’s side, telling the woman she should’ve arrived at 6 p.m., the earlier agreed upon time, to pick up their son.

The woman said she was pregnant at the time of the incident and claimed Zuberi put his hands on her and that she called an ambulance following the exchange to get her blood pressure checked.

Judge Judy, whose full name is Judy Sheindlin, didn’t believe her and asked for a medical report proving she was injured.

“Who cares about your blood pressure,” Judge Judy asked.

The judge asks Zuberi if the baby the woman is pregnant with is his, to which he responded “there could be a possibility.”

The woman denied attacking Zuberi and destroying his property and counter sued for her phone, which she said her ex-fiancé broke after getting out of jail.

Judge Judy dismissed the counter claim and ruled in favor of Zuberi, ordering the woman to pay him $2,500 for destroying his property.

“I would’ve awarded you money for false arrest because I don’t think that there was any basis for you to be arrested other than the police in New York sometimes are scared not to make an arrest if there’s a call for domestic violence,” Judy told Zuberi.

Authorities in July homed in on Zuberi one day after he traveled from his Klamath Falls, Oregon, home to Seattle, Washington, where he solicited a prostitute and kidnapped her, the FBI’s Portland Field Office said.

He posed as an undercover police officer, flashing a badge, pointing a Taser, and placing the woman in handcuffs, before putting her into the back seat of his car, according to the criminal complaint.

Once at his home, he put her into a makeshift cell he constructed in his garage of cinder blocks with a metal door that couldn’t be opened from the inside, officials said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Portland Field Office is asking for the public’s help in identifying potential victims of a violent sex assault offender who has lived in at least 10 states.FBI Oregon

The woman managed to escape and the Klamath Falls Police Department obtained a search warrant for Zuberi’s home and found the cell as the victim described.

Zuberi fled and he was ultimately found in Reno, Nevada, on July 16, with his family.

He was in a car, holding one of his children in the front seat, speaking with a woman who was outside the car in a Walmart parking lot when officials located him last month. It’s not clear at this time if this woman he was with is the same one from the “Judge Judy” episode.

After a 45-minute standoff, he was taken into custody.

Zuberi is also accused of allegedly attacking, abusing and threatening to kill a woman and their two children before she sought a protective order against him three years ago.

The woman who filed the protective order is the same woman who appeared on “Judge Judy” with Zuberi.

Zuberi’s lawyer in Oregon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. The hotline, run by the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN), can put you in contact with your local rape crisis center. You can also access RAINN’s online chat service at https://www.rainn.org/get-help.

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Historian on Trump indictment and holding leaders accountable

Historian on Trump indictment and holding leaders accountable – CBS News

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Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer, editor of “The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment,” discusses the latest criminal indictment against the former president as a result of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection. Zelizer explains that, in bringing Trump to trial, the Department of Justice has boldly declared – regardless of the political fallout – it will hold our leaders accountable if they violate sacrosanct democratic principles.

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Nothing seemed unusual at Oregon home where man is accused of holding woman captive, neighbor says

The neighbor of a man accused of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and holding a woman captive in his Oregon garage said Wednesday that nothing seemed out of the ordinary at the home and that the suspect once saved her pet during a near-lethal dog fight.

Negasi Zuberi, who authorities said is linked to at least four violent sexual assaults in four states, moved to the quiet suburban neighborhood in Klamath Falls with his wife and two children roughly six months ago, neighbor Melanie McClure told NBC News.

Zuberi, 29, was charged with one count of interstate kidnapping in federal district court in Oregon after authorities arrested him on July 16. He was taken into custody after a standoff in the parking lot of a Nevada Walmart, according to a statement of probable cause unsealed Wednesday.

McClure, an occupational therapist who has lived in the neighborhood since 2016 and lives next door to the home, said that when she introduced herself to Zuberi, he identified himself as “Sakima” and said he’d just moved to the area from Colorado.

“He’s not overly friendly, but he’s not a jerk or anything like that,” said McClure, 45, recalling their conversation. “Nothing stood out to me that would speak to anything like what he’s being accused of.”

Zuberi also went by “Justin Hyche” and “Justin Kouassi,” federal authorities said Wednesday.

A couple of months after the family moved in, McClure’s two dogs — a Doberman pinscher puppy and a much smaller Pomeranian-husky mix — got in a fight in her front yard, with the larger animal clutching the smaller dog’s collar in its mouth and choking him, she said.

Zuberi “was willing to step in without question and said, ‘you want help?’” McClure recalled. “I was desperate.”

When they finally got the smaller dog loose, he was nearly unconscious and Zuberi administered chest compressions, McClure said.

“He saved him,” she said. “He brought him back for me.”

Afterward, McClure said, she left the family a bottle of wine and a thank you card.

“I guess I’m surprised that I didn’t notice anything,” McClure added. “Here’s the thing — anybody can hide anything.”

McClure never learned what Zuberi did for work but said he didn’t appear to follow a 9-5 schedule. His wife was a “very sweet” mother who had no idea about her husband’s alleged crimes, she said.

“She’s trying her best to navigate this,” McClure said.

Efforts to reach Zuberi’s wife were unsuccessful.

Zuberi’s landlords, Klamath Falls Mayor Carol Westfall and her husband, Kevin Westfall, said in a statement Wednesday that they were “shocked and dismayed by what occurred.”

The couple filed a residential complaint for eviction on July 21, giving 24 hour notice to Zuberi and “all others” that there had been “personal injury, substantial damage, extremely outrageous act or unlawful occupant” at the property.

In the statement, the Westfalls commended local, state and federal police as well as the woman who authorities said escaped a makeshift cinder block cell where Zuberi allegedly held her captive.

According to the probable cause statement, Zuberi posed as a police officer when he allegedly approached the woman, a sex worker, in Seattle on July 15 and pointed a stun gun at her, saying he needed to take her into custody.

Zuberi is accused of placing her in leg irons and handcuffs and sexually assaulting her while driving her to his home, roughly 450 miles south of Seattle, the statement says. Once there, the woman slept but “briefly awoke to the realization that she would likely die if she did not attempt to escape,” the statement says.

“Police say she beat the door with her hands until they were bloody in order to break free,” Assistant Special Agent in Charge Stephanie Shark with the FBI Portland Field Office told reporters Wednesday.

Home of suspect Negasi Zuberi in Klamath Falls, Ore.Google Maps

Once outside, she flagged down a passing motorist who called 911, according to the statement.

When authorities searched Zuberi’s home, they found a handwritten note titled “Operation take over” with the bullet points “leave phone at home” and “make sure they don’t have a bunch of people in their life. You don’t want any type of investigation,” the statement says.

Shark said Zuberi was linked to four additional violent sexual assaults in at least four states, though she did not disclose where those cases were.

He has lived in 12 states — California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Alabama and Nevada — over the last decade and may have used several methods to target victims, including drugging drinks and impersonating a police officer, the FBI said.

The agency launched an investigation website where potential victims or others with information related to the case can fill out a form to offer more information.

Tim Stelloh

Marlene Lenthang, Andrew Blankstein, Valeriya Antonshchuk, Doha Madani and Donna Mendell contributed.

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