3 Men Arrested in Northern California for Kidnapping Woman, Forcing Her to Become Sex Slave
Three men in California were arrested for kidnapping, raping and abusing a woman while she was held in captivity for about two months.
The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office said that the suspects kidnapped a 22-year-old woman in December, "sometime during the holidays," and kept her at a home in Santa Rosa until her escape last week, reports the Los Angeles Times. For weeks, she was "brutally sexually and physically" assaulted, said police.
The woman then managed to escape through a door that was left opened. After she reported the crime to police, authorities served a search warrant on Feb. 19 to investigate the house where she was allegedly abused. However, police made no arrests at that time.
The suspects were then arrested when they went to the sheriff's office to retrieve property that was seized during the search. They have been identified as Jose Angel Barajas-Mireles, 34, Jaime Gomez Cisneros, 52, of Watsonville and Guillermo Crestino Avina, 34, of Santa Rosa.
Investigators believe that Barajas-Mireles was the "mastermind" behind the kidnapping and held the victim against her will in a rural home located in the 3500 block of Stony Point Road. He is also believed to be responsible for sexually abusing her and committing most of the physical assaults, investigators said.
He has been charged with aggravated sodomy, aggravated oral copulation and aggravated rape. He is currently being held on a $6 million bail, said an official on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Cisneros and Avina guarded the victim to prevent her from leaving the gated home, the sheriff's office said. They were each charged with false imprisonment and being an accessory. There bail was set on $11,000 each
"Out of an overwhelming sense of fear of retaliation coupled with the traumatic events she endured, she initially stated to law enforcement that she had been kidnapped at gunpoint," the office said, according to The Associated Press.
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