A former star investigator for the Los Angeles Police Department’s organized crime division is in custody after being charged with a 1994 kidnapping during a store robbery in Thousand Oaks.
Former Det. Michael D. Brambles is accused of kidnapping a woman, identified as SW, at a gift boutique and using a gun during a sexual assault a month after he retired from the LAPD, ending a career that saw the late Police Chief Daryl F. Gates call him “one of the smartest . . . most innovative detectives I’ve ever known . . . exactly what you’d want in a detective.”
The alleged April 19, 1994, kidnapping and attack was part of a series of armed hold-ups and sexual assaults across the L.A. region. Brambles received 102 years in state prison in 1996 for his L.A. County crimes. Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryoff said investigators identified Brambles and he was charged, but because of his sentencing in L.A., the case was dropped…