A 77-year-old former Los Angeles Police Department detective was scheduled for arraignment Friday in Ventura County Superior Court on felony charges in connection with the 1994 kidnapping and robbery of a business owner in Thousand Oaks.
Michael Brambles was arrested in Santa Maria Aug. 12 by investigators with the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office and remained in the Ventura County Main Jail in lieu of $2 million bail.
He is accused of entering a boutique on April 19, 1994, at closing time, pointing a handgun at the proprietor and forcing her into a back room where he tied her hands and sexually assaulted her before stealing property, the district attorney’s office said.
Brambles could not be charged with the sexual assault in 2026 because the statute of limitations expired, prosecutors said.
He was identified within months of the 1994 crime, prosecutors said, but the Ventura County case was dismissed, because Brambles was already facing a lifetime in prison.
“Brambles was being prosecuted in Los Angeles County for an extensive crime spree involving 18 cases, including armed robberies and sexual assaults,” according to a district attorney’s statement. “He was ultimately convicted of 26 counts, including 18 armed robberies and multiple sexual assaults. He was also convicted of using a firearm in each case. He was sentenced to 102 years in state prison.”
He was released on parole after serving about 26 years of that sentence, prosecutors said. Investigators learned of his release during a routine follow up of DNA from previous convictions and cold cases.
The victim in the 1994 case, identified only as SW, agreed that prosecutors should reopen the case.
“I was shocked to hear not only that this man was walking free, but that he had been out of prison for six years,” she said. “The justice that I and his other victims deserved was denied when he was only required to serve a fraction of the sentence he earned. I am thankful to have this opportunity now to seek justice for myself and for his other victims.”
Prosecutors charged Brambles with kidnapping for robbery, with special allegations including use of a weapon in a sex offense, great violence, a vulnerable victim.