Vallejo kidnap defendant set to plead guilty
The bizarre saga of a Vallejo kidnapping-for-ransom case, in which police initially accused the victims of carrying out an elaborate hoax, will take a major step toward a resolution Thursday when the accused abductor pleads guilty in a Sacramento federal courtroom, attorneys said.
Matthew Muller, 39, a disbarred San Francisco immigration lawyer, has agreed to admit to kidnapping 30-year-old Denise Huskins from the Mare Island home of her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, in March 2015, the defendant’s attorney, Tom Johnson, said Wednesday.
In exchange for the plea, federal prosecutors will not recommend a sentence of life without parole, said Johnson, a Sacramento attorney. But the decision on whether Muller will spend
the rest of his life behind bars will ultimately rest with U.S. District Court Judge Troy Nunley.
“We’re relieved,” Quinn’s mother, Marianne Quinn, said after learning of the plea agreement Wednesday. “But I never can forget about what’s happened. It’s always in the back of my mind. It never goes away.”
Apparently seeking to avoid possible complications with the plea, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Segal requested the court to “make a detailed inquiry into the nature and current effects of the defendant’s mental condition and medications.”
Muller “has had mental problems in the past and is currently medicated,” Segal, the lead prosecutor in the case, wrote in a memorandum filed in court Tuesday.
Earlier this month, prosecutors sought to block Muller from “asserting an insanity defense” or introducing expert evidence relating to his mental condition that may affect the issue of his guilt.
The sensational case — involving a onetime Marine and Harvard-educated defendant, a sympathetic young couple, and a bungled police investigation — set off a media firestorm as zigzagging revelations of the case played out in public and captured intense national interest.
Thursday’s guilty plea will begin to pave the way for a conclusion for the victims’ civil rights lawsuit against the city of Vallejo and its Police Department.
The criminal charges against Muller, who was eventually caught after a home invasion in Dublin, stem from the early-morning hours of March 23, 2015. He is accused of sneaking into Aaron Quinn’s home, where he tied up the victims, drugged them and vanished with Huskins.
The boyfriend later called police and laid out the extraordinary details of the home invasion, including the seemingly paltry $8,500 ransom that made investigators suspicious. Detectives interrogated Aaron Quinn for hours, suspecting him in the disappearance.
The day after the kidnapping, while teams of searchers fanned out on Mare Island, The Chronicle received a “proof of life” statement — an audio recording of Huskins recounting the day’s news and personal details only she would know.
The next day, Huskins remarkably showed up at the home of one of her parents in Huntington Beach (Orange County). She told police there that she was sexually assaulted by her abductor before being set free.
Investigators in Vallejo, though, publicly dismissed the account as bogus.
“Given the facts that have been presented thus far, this event appears to be an orchestrated event and not a kidnapping,” Vallejo police Lt. Kenny Park said at a news conference.
But in the days after Huskins’ safe return, The Chronicle began receiving a series of emails from a person purporting to be the kidnapper. The author described himself as part of a group of “Ocean’s Eleven, gentlemen criminals,” who ran an auto-theft ring on Mare Island and wanted to move on to more lucrative crimes.
Months later, Muller was captured after a home invasion in Dublin. He pleaded no contest in Alameda County Superior Court in September 2015 for the Dublin crime, in which he broke into a home and tried to subdue a husband and wife who were asleep.
The husband fought back, and Muller ran from the scene, leaving his cell phone behind.
Authorities used the phone to track Muller to his parents’ vacation home in South Lake Tahoe, where police uncovered evidence linking him in the Vallejo crime.
A California native, Muller spent four years in the Marine Corps before enrolling at Pomona College and then Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 2006. By 2011, he was a member of the State Bar of California and did immigration work in San Francisco.
Muller was disbarred for refusing to refund a client for services he failed to perform, and in 2014 he filed for bankruptcy protection in Sacramento. After his arrest in the Dublin case, police around the Bay Area linked him to several similar home invasions over the years.
Vallejo police officials later wrote letters of apology to Huskins and Aaron Quinn after Muller was criminally charged in federal court. The city continues to fight the civil case.
“What we’ve all had is posttraumatic stress from this situation,” Marianne Quinn said. “At least now the civil case can move forward.”