A 27-year-old East Palo Alto man was taken into custody on Tuesday night without incident after police say he kidnapped and attacked a domestic partner earlier this month, an investigation that stretched across the San Francisco Bay before ending with his arrest in Newark. East Palo Alto police say the victim is now safe and recovering.
Ricardo Herrera Castillo was arrested in connection with the alleged domestic violence, kidnapping, and attack, which East Palo Alto police say occurred last Friday, according to KRON4. Investigators with the department’s criminal investigations division tracked Castillo to Port Sailwood Drive in Newark, in Alameda County, where they served both a search warrant and an arrest warrant. Because the alleged crime happened in East Palo Alto, which sits in San Mateo County, while Castillo was ultimately located across the bay, the operation required East Palo Alto police to coordinate with the Newark Police Department and the Fremont Police Department to serve the warrants, per the same account.
That kind of cross-county coordination between San Mateo and Alameda counties is not unheard of for East Palo Alto police. In 2023, the department assisted out-of-state investigators from St. Louis in locating and safely rescuing a 15-year-old kidnapping victim, a case that also ended with arrests at an East Palo Alto residence, according to the City of East Palo Alto.
Charges Carry Serious Prison Exposure
Castillo faces charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment, domestic violence, terrorist threats and stalking, the report notes. Under California Penal Code Section 207(a), simple kidnapping is classified as a violent felony punishable by three, five, or eight years in state prison, along with fines up to $10,000, and it counts as a strike under California’s Three Strikes law, according to Kann Law Office…