Former LAPD detective arrested for 1994 kidnapping linked to robbery and assault

Michael D. Brambles, a former star investigator for the LAPD’s organized-crime unit, was arrested in Santa Maria after Ventura County prosecutors charged him with kidnapping, robbery and weapon use during a 1994 sexual assault in Thousand Oaks. The incident involved the abduction of a woman known only as SW at a gift shop, followed by a gun-point assault a month after Brambles retired from the force. DNA evidence uncovered during a county-wide review of sexual-assault kits linked him to the crime, prompting the new charges despite his earlier 102-year sentence for a series of armed robberies and assaults in the mid-1990s. Brambles had been released in 2020 under a 2018 law allowing inmates over 60 who had served 25 years to seek elder parole, sparking public outcry.

He is being held on a $2 million bond in Santa Barbara County jail and is scheduled for arraignment on Friday; a sex-crime charge was barred by the statute of limitations. The case revives scrutiny of California’s parole system and the legacy of a detective once lauded by Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.