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An Alameda County judge on Friday sentenced 39-year-old Antioch man Keith Kenard Asberry Jr. to the maximum sentence for his recent convictions of kidnapping, rape, burglary and assault. Asberry’s convictions stem from incidents in Berkeley in 2008 and 2015.
A jury found Asberry guilty in April of kidnapping to commit a sex crime, kidnapping to commit robbery, forcible oral copulation and forcible penetration–all with the use of a firearm–in addition to aggravated kidnapping, tying and binding, aggravated kidnapping, first-degree burglary and misdemeanor assault.
Alameda County Judge Thomas Matthew Reardon imposed the maximum sentence against Asberry, sentencing him to 75 years to life plus 36 years.
“Keith Asberry’s actions were vile, and this sentence reflects the severity of the crime and its impact on the victim,” Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price said in a press release on the verdict. “I commend the work of the prosecutorial team, the inspector assigned to the case, and the victim-witness advocates for the services and support provided to the victims.”
His convictions indicate that in 2008 Asberry approached a teenager while she got into her car near Berkeley High School before forcing her to drive to a dead-end street at gunpoint, where he sexually assaulted her and, later, forced her to use her ATM card to withdrawal $200 from her bank account. Although 2008 reports of the incident mention two teenagers being attacked, Asberry’s conviction regarded only one.
The second incident, in 2015, resulted from Asberry walking into the home of a victim as she finished unloading her car from a shopping trip. Asberry ran out the front door after the woman fought off the attack.
Asberry was also accused of the 2015 rape and murder of 37-year-old UCSF dental student Randhir Kaur, but was acquitted of her murder just three months prior to his latest conviction. Kaur was killed in her apartment less than two weeks after the 2015 home invasion for which he was convicted.
Asberry’s 2008 case came to controversy in 2016 after a San Francisco Chronicle investigation found that the rape kit from the case was not tested until 2014 at the earliest. In 2019 California passed SB 22, requiring that law enforcement agencies test all rape kits within 120 days of their reception and that all rape kits be submitted to law enforcement within 20 days of collection.