Sakima Zuberi, who previously went by Negasi Zuberi.

A federal jury Friday quickly returned guilty verdicts on all counts against Negasi Zuberi, finding he had kidnapped two 21-year-old women within two months last year, sexually assaulted them and held them against their will for hours in the garage of his rental home in Klamath Falls.

“He violated their bodies. He violated their freedom and he violated the law. Hold him accountable,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Sweet told jurors in closing arguments.

The jury issued the verdicts after less than four hours of deliberations on the eighth day of the trial before U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane in Medford.

Zuberi’s lawyers called no witnesses, but they played a cellphone video that Zuberi made of one of the victims in the back of his Honda Pilot SUV on May 6, 2023. They argued that the footage showed Zuberi and the Klamath Falls woman had consensual sex.

The woman testified last week that Zuberi filmed what he called an “insurance” video, demanding that she lie on top of him and pretend she was having a good time.

Zuberi created the video to “silence” or blackmail the woman, threatening to play it for others if she reported his assault, prosecutors argued.

“He made her fears come true” by playing it for the jury of 12 but she bravely took the stand regardless, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan J. Lichvarcik said.

“He’s preying on people he thinks are weak, preying on people he thinks are vulnerable, and he misjudged big time,” Lichvarcik said.

Zuberi chose not to take the stand in his own defense on Thursday but changed his mind Friday after he heard Lichvarcik’s closing. The judge denied Zuberi’s request.

“He’s changed his mind too late,” McShane said. “I think this is, in fact, a ploy to disrupt the case in some appellate manner.”

Zuberi, now 30, was convicted of one count each of kidnapping and transportation for criminal sexual activity for the July 14, 2023, abduction of a Washington woman from Seattle, one count of kidnapping in the May 2023 abduction of the Klamath Falls woman from a local bar, two counts of possession of a firearm and ammunition and two counts of possession of ammunition.

The testimony from each of his victims alone would have been enough to convict Zuberi, Lichvarcik told the jury. But he noted that FBI agents and police also uncovered Zuberi’s plans.

Those included a handwritten note found in Zuberi’s bedroom titled “Operation Take Over,” a so-called “target” list of women in their 20s and jottings on how Zuberi desired to “raise an army,” the prosecutor said.

Federal agents also found the makeshift cinder-block cell in the garage of Zuberi’s home where he imprisoned the Washington woman as well as the handcuffs, leg irons, cellphone jammers, Taser and gun he used on the women or threatened them with, Lichvarcik said.

Zuberi ran off with his family once the Washington woman escaped from the locked cell and then acknowledged to police, “I’m f——” after he was cornered by police in a Walmart parking lot and arrested in Reno.

“He left a dump truck of evidence behind him,” Lichvarcik said.

Attorney Michael P. Bertholf, one of Zuberi’s defense lawyers, said the women’s accounts in this case weren’t reliable and didn’t match all the evidence. He urged jurors to question why prosecutors presented so much testimony that wasn’t directly related to the charges.

“This case is a case of government overreach,” he said.

Both women testified, describing harrowing accounts of their hours-long abductions.

Zuberi was earlier convicted in California of assault in 2021 for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old girl and then beating her in a remote area of Alameda County.

The judge set Zuberi’s sentencing for Jan. 16.

Zuberi still faces a pending charge of attempted escape from the Jackson County Jail. He’s accused of using an improvised, screw-like device to strike and shatter glass in his cell on Aug. 22, according to a probable cause affidavit. He then covered the shattered glass with books and paper in an apparent attempt to hide it, the affidavit said. The device was found attached to his sandal, the affidavit said.