Man arrested in Berkeley on kidnapping, sex crime charges
The suspect was identified as 40-year-old Jorge Molina Rodriguez of Hayward, BPD said.
Berkeley police arrested a man early Monday morning after he kidnapped a woman in Oakland and sexually assaulted her in Berkeley, authorities report.
Just before 2:45 a.m., a young woman called 911 to report an intruder in her rental home in the 2300 block of McKinley Avenue, Berkeley police said in response to a Scanner inquiry.
She had been startled to find a man inside the house, police said. He had a woman with him.
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A neighbor told TBS she had woken up to the sound of two women screaming, then looked outside to see lights coming on as police pulled up on the block.
Officers found the man — identified as 40-year-old Jorge Molina Rodriguez — still inside the home with a woman who said she wasn't there by choice, authorities said.
The victim, an Oakland woman in her 50s, said she had also been sexually assaulted in Oakland sometime before the Berkeley incident, BPD said. She was taken to the hospital for treatment.
On Monday, community members told TBS that Molina began showing up on the block in 2024, ostensibly to help a largely homebound woman in her 60s as a handyman.
There were a number of red flags, however, prompting reports to police and other welfare agencies, neighbors said.
The handyman would sometimes stay overnight on the woman's couch, parking his large white work truck outside. He emptied out much of the home, including her antique Japanese furniture, neighbors said.
He got her to buy him a Tesla — and then had her take on roommates to make the car payments, neighbors said.
Increasingly, she began to struggle to cover basic expenses like food.
The woman has lived on the block for more than 30 years, neighbors said. After her mother developed dementia and died, things got worse.
Neighbors said they had worried that the woman was vulnerable and that she was being taken advantage of.
They made reports, and authorities from multiple agencies came and investigated. But the woman told them the man was helping her, so no action was taken, neighbors said.
It was her home where police found Molina on Monday, neighbors said, after her roommate, who is in her 20s, called for help.
BPD arrested him at 3:45 a.m. on suspicion of kidnapping and rape in connection with the Oakland woman he had brought to Berkeley, according to police and booking records.
He is now being held at Berkeley Jail on $200,000 bail.
Later in the morning, Berkeley police officers went back to the block to look for evidence, speak with neighbors and canvass for video. The department's Crime Scene Unit was also there.
The residential block near the police station is usually quiet — aside from the time someone escaped from Berkeley Jail, one woman told The Scanner.
"This is a tight neighborhood where everybody knows everybody," she said. "We look out for each other. This is just a shock to everyone."
Neighbors said they are now renewing their efforts to get the woman help.
Molina, who lives in Hayward, is set for arraignment Thursday at Wiley Manuel Courthouse in Oakland, according to court records.
He has no prior criminal cases listed in Alameda County Superior Court.
No booking photograph was immediately available due to the ongoing investigation, Berkeley police said.
