Former Border Agent in San Diego Charged With Sexual Battery
The district attorney’s office charged Juan Prishker with sexual battery, false imprisonment and distributing obscene material.
A former Border Patrol agent in San Diego is facing up to several years in prison after authorities charged him with sexually assaulting a woman and falsely imprisoning another.
The San Diego County district attorney’s office charged Juan Prishker last week with two felonies, sexual battery and false imprisonment, and four misdemeanor counts of distributing obscene material between December 2022 and January 2024.
inewsource previously reported that a migrant aid volunteer accused Prishker of cornering her between their vehicles and showing her photos of his genitals when the two encountered each other at the border in December.
Weeks later, a video posted to YouTube appeared to show a Border Patrol agent — identified by the same aid worker as Prishker — showing photos of his genitals and then exposing himself to another woman. (The video has since been removed.)
The charges reveal a pattern of alleged misconduct dating back a year before the incidents inewsource reporting brought to light. They raise fresh questions about whether Prishker’s employer, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, knew of the alleged sexual assault from 2022 and what action, if any, the agency took to investigate.
Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, declined to discuss the allegations against Prishker, citing federal privacy laws, but confirmed that he was previously employed and has since resigned. The agency also previously declined inewsource’s request for Prishker’s personnel records.
“We do not tolerate misconduct within our ranks. When we discover any alleged or potential misconduct, we immediately refer it for investigation and cooperate fully with any criminal or administrative investigations. This is regardless of whether the alleged misconduct occurs on or off duty,” a CBP spokesperson said in a statement.
CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates misconduct among its personnel, is reviewing the incident.
Read the full article on inewsource.org.
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