Neighbors say they observed the woman freely come and go from her Lodi home – sometimes alone, other times hand-in-hand with her 60-year-old husband, but never appearing in distress.
But Lodi police allege her freedom was a facade: that Michael Patrick O'Riley ruled his wife – a 44-year-old woman he met on the Internet and married in China – through fear, force and threat of death.
She had no access to cash, and no car – O'Riley hid it from her, said Lodi Police Cpl. Dale Eubanks. O'Riley gave food to his wife only when she behaved herself – and only enough, it seems, to sustain her, Eubanks said.
Authorities say that after enduring a year and 10 months of intimidation and sexual abuse, the woman reached her breaking point Thursday. She called 911, and police arrived to find O'Riley piling his nine guns into his car, according to police.
As officers pulled up to the home – a converted storefront in a strip mall on busy West Lodi Avenue – the woman ran to one of the patrol cars and dove through an open window, crying for help, Eubanks said.
Police have not identified her.
They arrested O'Riley, a social worker at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Facility in southern Sacramento County, and booked him into the Lodi jail on suspicion of kidnapping, false imprisonment, sex crimes, terrorist threats, spousal battery and failure to provide for a spouse, Eubanks said.
Police seized his nine guns – a mix of handguns and rifles. They also confiscated $23,000 in cash.
On Friday, O'Riley was arraigned in San Joaquin Superior Court on charges of making terrorist threats and several counts of sexual abuse. His bail was set at $950,000. He was transferred Friday to the San Joaquin County jail. Efforts by The Bee to reach O'Riley or his relatives were unsuccessful.
Deputy District Attorney Maria Ghobadi, who is prosecuting the case, declined to discuss the allegations in detail, saying the case is in its early stages and the charges against O'Riley could change.
"We're taking it very slow with the investigation," she said. "As more information comes out, we will add more charges if necessary."
Police maintained their allegations Friday that the woman had been held captive by an abusive husband, hesitant to seek help for fear she would be deported to China or killed by her husband.
O'Riley went so far as to describe how he would kill her, Eubanks said. He declined to elaborate.
The woman has no family in the United States, Eubanks said, and doesn't appear to have close friends.
"She's all alone in the country and relying on him. Between his alleged abuse and what he's been doing to her ... she felt kind of isolated and felt kind of hopeless," Eubanks said.
O'Riley met the woman over the Internet and traveled to China four years ago to marry her, Eubanks said. They lived there for a time before moving to West Lodi Avenue, where they had been living for almost two years, he said.
During their years together here, the woman suffered abuse that seemed to revolve around O'Riley's "sexual appetite," Eubanks said.
The woman told police she was forced to perform oral copulation and there were "forms of penetration" done under threat, Eubanks said.
She is in the U.S. legally, but Eubanks said O'Riley had told her she would be deported or thrown behind bars if she called police. And because of cultural differences, she might have feared police, Eubanks said.
Allegations involving American men abusing immigrant wives they've met on the Internet are all too common, said Nilda Valmores, executive director of My Sister's House, a Sacramento nonprofit that helps Asian victims of domestic abuse.
My Sister's House has a six-bed shelter and all six beds are full, Valmores said. She said "about 50 percent of our cases are Asian women with American men."
Valmores said Internet marriages gone bad are a kind of "modern mail-order slavery, very close to individualized human trafficking."
In the past six months, My Sister's House has sheltered women from countries including India, Vietnam and the Philippines, Valmores said.
"When you take a victim far from their families, it's easy to keep them a victim because they have no resources available and often struggle with language," she said.
Shop owners and employees whose businesses adjoin O'Riley's Lodi residence said the woman spoke broken English and had been going to night school to improve her language skills.
They expressed disbelief at the allegations.
"We've been here 10 years and Mike was wonderful to us," said 68-year-old Judy Ito, a cosmetologist at Image Hair and Facial Studio.
Mike Torrente, 52, owner of Mike's Automotive, was skeptical of the charges. He said he regularly saw O'Riley's wife come and go and that the police account of captivity didn't match what he observed.
"That ain't the girl I'm seeing walking around. She doesn't dress shabby or anything," Torrente said.
As police continued their investigation Friday, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department placed O'Riley on paid administrative leave from his job at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center.
O'Riley has been employed as a social worker at the jail since April 1991, said Sgt. Tim Curran.
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