Keith Kiyoshi Kakugawa, a former best friend of President Barack Obama, was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of sexually assaulting a woman in Eureka, California.
Kakugawa was booked into jail in Humbolt County on suspicion of false imprisonment, sexual penetration by force, oral copulation by force and battery, reported the Times-Standard.
False imprisonment in legal terms means keeping someone restricted by force, not necessarily keeping them tied up or contained, Arcata Police Department Sgt. Keith Altizer said.
Kakugawa was previously arrested on May 7 for assault and released four hours later.
The Eureka, California resident is from Pearl City, Hawaii.
President Obama writes about Kakugawa, or “Ray,” in his autobiography Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.
Obama and Kakugawa--the latter was two years older--became friends at Hawaii’s Punahou School.
“Despite the difference in age, we’d fallen into an easy friendship, due in no small part to the fact that together we made up almost half of Punahou’s black high school population,” Obama, 52, wrote, reported RadarOnline.
“I enjoyed his company; he had a warmth and brash humor.”
The pair drifted apart, however, after high school.
Kokugawa allegedly punched, slapped, and assaulted a woman with whom he'd gone on a date, according to arrest records obtained by the National Enquirer.
The woman told police she had to escape by running outside naked.
“It’s a sad tale of how two young boys who were best friends in high school took drastically different paths in their lives,” Kakugawa’s father, Kenneth Kakugawa, told The Enquirer.
“I’m sure Barry (Obama’s childhood nickname) is going to be disappointed when he finds out that Keith has been arrested. They were as close as brothers at one time.”
Kakugawa is being held on $400,000 bond. If he’s convicted, he faces a lengthy prison sentence.
A source close to the former Wall Street trader told the Enquirer the prison time he’s facing may prompt him to reveal stories he knows about the president.
‘Keith knows a lot of secrets that could prove to be embarrassing for the commander-in-chief if they get out,’ he said.
‘They are mostly youthful indiscretions, but he would know more about Obama’s teenage drug-taking than anyone. And now that he’s really desperate and facing a lengthy prison stretch, he could spill the beans.’
