President Obama’s best friend in high school has been arrested in California on charges he brutally raped and beat a woman.
Keith Kakugawa, who played the role of an older brother to Obama when they were growing up in Hawaii, allegedly attacked the woman in her apartment after going out to dinner with her on Sept. 13.
Following an investigation by police from Arcata, Calif., Kakugawa, 54, was charged with false imprisonment, sexual penetration by force, oral copulation by force and battery. He is being held on $400,000 bond.
Obama wrote about Kakaguwa, whom he called “Ray,” in his memoir “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.”
Kakugawa, two years older, became friends with Obama when the future president was a 9th grader. Obama praised his “warmth and brash humor.”
In recent years Kakugawa has had a series of run-ins with the law. He was arrested on May 7 for assault, according to the Humboldt County (Calif.) Sheriff’s Office.