Overview
- Authorities arrested 77‑year‑old Michael D. Brambles in Santa Maria on Wednesday and are holding him in the Santa Barbara County jail on $2 million bond pending arraignment in Ventura County.
- Ventura detectives say modern DNA testing of archived evidence through the federally funded Sexual Assault Kit Initiative produced a match linking Brambles to the April 1994 gift‑shop attack on a clerk identified as S.W.
- S.W. was notified of the DNA result, agreed to pursue prosecution, and prosecutors filed kidnapping-for-robbery and weapon‑use charges while the statute of limitations prevents new sexual‑assault charges in that incident.
- Brambles was a prominent LAPD organized‑crime detective who was convicted in 1996 of a string of robberies and sexual assaults and received about a 102‑year sentence before being paroled in 2020 under California’s elder‑parole law.
- The case highlights how SAKI retesting can reopen cold cases, may prompt outreach to other possible victims, and could expose Brambles to additional prison time if convicted under the revived Ventura County charges.