40-Year Sentence Handed Down in Kidnapping Case Police Called a 'Hoax'

On Thursday a Harvard-educated kidnapper was sentenced to 40-years in prison in a kidnapping case that Vallejo Police Department described as a “hoax.”

The kidnapper, Matthew Muller, was a Harvard Law School graduate and former Marine. He was found guilty and sentenced over the March 23, 2015, kidnapping of Denise Huskins.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn were asleep in a home on Mare Island when they awoke to see Muller standing by them. He held them at bay with a water gun–which was painted to look real–then drugged, bound, and blindfolded them. He put Huskins in the trunk of Quinn’s car, then moved her to the trunk of a second vehicle and drove her to his parents’ South Lake Tahoe home.

Once there, Huskins said she was “secured on a bed with a zip tie and a bike lock and blindfolded with a pair of blacked-out swim goggles” and sexually assaulted.

On March 25, 2015, Muller drove Huskins to Huntington Beach and released her. Vallejo police were suspicious because Huskins “reappeared carrying an overnight bag and wearing sunglasses.” Vallejo police Capt. James O’Connell said Huskins “did not act like a kidnapping victim.”

Less the 24 hours after Huskins was released the VPD equated the kidnapping investigation to a “wild goose chase.” Vallejo Police Lt. Kenny Park said, “Today, there is no evidence to support the claims that this was a stranger abduction or an abduction at all. Given the facts that have been presented thus far, this event appears to be an orchestrated event and not a crime.”

CBS San Francisco reports that the police actually “accused” Huskins and Quinn of “making up the crime.”

The FBI arrested Muller on June 8, 2015, after identifying him from a failed kidnapping attempt that had occurred prior to Huskins’ abduction. The Vallejo PD sent a letter to Huskins and Quinn a month after Muller’s arrest, saying, “It is now clear that there was a kidnapping on March 23, 2015, that it was not a hoax or orchestrated event and that VPD conclusions were incorrect.”

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.