DNA 'cold hit' connects inmate to 2004 assault

OAKLAND — A man in prison on a parole violation was charged Thursday with kidnapping and sexually assaulting another man in August 2004 after a DNA "cold hit" linked him to the attack, police said.

A second suspect in the case is still being sought.

Charged with several sex crimes and a penalty enhancement clause because the crimes occurred during a kidnapping was Marquez Briggs, 23, who used to live in Oakland and is currently at Corcoran State Prison.

Assault investigator Officer Jesse Grant said Thursday the victim is a 36-year-old man who was abducted at gunpoint in his truck after leaving an East Oakland night club near 98th Avenue and San Leandro Street.

Grant said the man did not know Briggs or the other suspect.

The victim was driven to the secluded driveway of a house several miles away. There, Briggs forced him outside the truck at gunpoint and sexually assaulted him, Grant said.

The victim finally managed to run away and his truck was recovered a few days later, police said.

DNA evidence was recovered from the victim, and Oakland police criminalists sent it to a state lab. The DNA was put into the Combined DNA Index System, but no matches were found at the time.

A few months later Briggs was arrested and convicted in the Central Valley for a sex crime. As a convicted felon who did not have a DNA sample on file, he was required to submit one before his release from prison as mandated by Proposition 69, which passed in 2004.

That sample was sent to the state lab, which matched it to the DNA evidence obtained from the Oakland sexual assault victim.

Through computer records, Grant found that Briggs was serving a term in Corcoran prison south of Fresno for violating his parole on a separate narcotics conviction.

The warrant will be served on Briggs in prison, and he will be brought to Oakland for arraignment following his release in a few months.

Grant said police are still trying to identify the second suspect in the Oakland assault, and up to $5,000 in reward money is available. Anyone with information can contact him at 238-3426 or Crime Stoppers of Oakland at 238-6946.