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, 29, 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, 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 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 video from the initial incident that "Judge Judy" Sheindlin watched in the set's courtroom.
In the video, 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 Sheindlin 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 Sheindlin.
The woman said she had arrived at Zuberi's home that day around 11 p.m. to pick their son up but that he didn't let her take him. She claimed she didn't throw the glass bottle at Zuberi.
Sheindlin took Zuberi's side, telling the woman she should have 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 that Zuberi put his hands on her and that she called an ambulance after the exchange to get her blood pressure checked.
Sheindlin didn't believe her and asked for a medical report proving she was injured.
"Who cares about your blood pressure?" she asked.
She asked Zuberi whether the baby the woman was pregnant with was his, to which he responded, "There could be a possibility."
The woman denied attacking Zuberi and destroying his property and countersued for her phone, which she said her ex-fiancé broke after he got out of jail.
Sheindlin dismissed the counterclaim 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," she told Zuberi.
Authorities in July homed in on Zuberi one day after he traveled from his Klamath Falls, Oregon, home to Seattle, where he solicited a prostitute and kidnapped her, the FBI’s Portland, Oregon, Field Office said.
He posed as an undercover police officer, flashing a badge, pointing a Taser and placing the woman in handcuffs, before he put her into the back seat of his car, according to the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Meford, Oregon.
Once they were at his home, he put her into a makeshift cinder block cell he constructed in his garage, with a metal door that couldn’t be opened from the inside, officials said.
The woman managed to escape, and Klamath Falls police 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 found him last month. It's not clear whether this woman he was with is the same one from the "Judge Judy" episode.
After a 45-minute standoff, he was taken into custody.
Authorities also allege that Zuberi attacked, abused and threatened 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.
