Paroled Rapist Held in New Attack on Victim

A man who spent six years in prison for raping a 9-year-old girl in Oakland was arrested on suspicion of raping the same girl to punish her for turning him in the first time, Oakland police said Wednesday.

Samuel L. Barnett, 44, was paroled on April 29, having served half of a 12-year sentence for the original rape. He was arrested Tuesday night in San Pablo and accused of attacking the girl, now 15, in the same East Oakland garage where the first rape took place in January, 1985.

“This particular case is so violent and atrocious that I’ve pulled two investigators off to work on it full time,” Oakland Police Lt. Craig Stewart said.

Authorities said the girl was repeatedly assaulted over seven hours on Monday. Investigators are seeking a second suspect who was with Barnett and allegedly helped abduct the girl.

“It’s the strangest and most horrifying (case) I’ve ever investigated,” said Oakland Police Sgt. Sharon Jackson. “I’ve never had one where the attacker came back for the victim years later.”

The junior high school student told police she was on a street near her home early Monday afternoon when a man she identified as Barnett ordered her into the car he was driving.

The girl told officers that when she tried to run, the other man forced her into the car. She said she was driven to 76th Avenue in East Oakland, where a woman helped her abductors take the girl into the garage, then drove off laughing, said Jackson. The woman is being sought as an accessory to the crime, police said.

For the next seven hours, police said, Barnett and the other man took turns violently molesting her and forcing her to orally copulate them. The garage, a dilapidated structure, is part of a residence where Barnett’s aunt and uncle live.

Jackson said the girl told investigators that Barnett taunted her, and told her she was being attacked for turning him in six years ago. Barnett, who is scheduled to appear in court today, also threatened one of her relatives, police said.

The girl managed to escape at about 9 p.m. Monday by knocking Barnett over while the second man was distracted, Jackson said. The victim was treated at a local hospital, and released.

Police said the victim’s family is angry because parole authorities failed to tell them of Barnett’s release. But a Department of Corrections spokesman said there was no formal written request from the family that it be told of his release.

“There is no automatic notification,” said Lt. Steven Jackson of the Department of Corrections. “If the victim makes the request of the Board of Prison Terms, then they are so notified. You have to keep in mind that we’re talking about one of 101,000 inmates in the system at this time.”

In 1985, Barnett abducted the girl as she waited for a relative after school. He took her to the garage and raped her for two hours. Barnett pleaded no contest to rape and child molestation charges and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in March, 1985.

Barnett, who served his time at the prison at Vacaville, failed to contact his parole officer upon his release on April 29, prompting parole authorities to issue a warrant for his arrest on April 30, said Steve Schroeder, deputy regional administrator of the state parole department in San Francisco.

“He never cooperated. He never made an attempt to contact his parole agent,” Schroeder said.

But while an arrest warrant for the parole violation had been issued, authorities had no idea where Barnett was living. Then, Oakland police, investigating the rape allegation, received a tip on Tuesday that he was living in San Pablo, a suburb north of Oakland.

State law did not require that Barnett have a plan for where he would live or how he would earn a living upon his release.

“He had no residence of record and there was little or no way to find out where he had landed,” Schroeder said.

Under the state’s determinate sentencing law, Schroeder noted, Barnett was released automatically after serving six years, with six years off for good time. The law allows inmates to reduce their sentences by a day for each day they work or attend school while in prison.

Barnett failed to comply with the law that he register with Alameda County law enforcement authorities as a sex offender. He never showed up to notify the Sheriff’s Department that he was living in the county, Schroeder said.