A former San Diego County-based U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of on-duty sex crimes was acquitted this week of sexual battery and false imprisonment charges related to two women.
Juan Angel Prishker, who spent nearly two decades with U.S. Customs and Border Protection before resigning, was found not guilty of the charges by a San Diego jury on Thursday.
Prosecutors alleged he groped a detained migrant woman, then one year later prevented another woman from leaving his presence after showing her pictures of his genitals.
Prishker previously faced misdemeanor charges of distributing obscene matter for allegedly showing the pictures of his genitals to the woman, as well as a separate incident of showing the pictures to a group of internet personalities filming a video near the border. A judge dismissed those charges earlier this year, ruling that the pictures in question did not rise to the legal definition of obscene matter because they did not depict sexual activity.
Prishker’s defense attorney, Kerry Armstrong, said in a statement after the trial that his client “maintained his innocence from day one, and both of us greatly respect the jury’s verdict.”
The defense attorney’s statement continued, “This case should have never been filed by the District Attorney’s Office, but thank goodness the jury did the right thing.”
Prosecutors said the first alleged victim, identified only as Jane Doe 1 in court, was detained while attempting to cross into the United States in December of 2022.
She testified that immigration officers handed her off to Prishker, who told her to put her hands on his vehicle.
She complied and Prishker searched her and in the process, reached underneath her bra and groped her breasts, she testified.
The second alleged victim, Karen Parker, a retired social worker who volunteers with migrants, testified that while assisting migrants in the Jacumba area, she sought help from Border Patrol personnel for a woman who required medical attention and located Prishker, who she’d met on prior occasions.
While speaking with him, she said Prishker told her he wanted to show her something and showed her two pictures on his cell phone of his penis, according to Parker.
She testified that as she tried to leave, he moved around her and momentarily blocked her from leaving.
Armstrong told jurors to take note that neither woman told others of the allegations against Prishker for some time after the incidents allegedly happened.
He also told jurors that Parker had reasons to embellish her testimony because she filed a $6 million federal lawsuit against Prishker and the federal government.
“That’s as much motive to lie as I can ever imagine,” Armstrong said.
Deputy District Attorney Vincent Chen argued the victims’ accounts were credible and argued that if the women sought to fabricate allegations against Prishker, they would have accused him of much more offensive conduct.
He also described Armstrong’s arguments as painting Parker as “a greedy opportunist” and Jane Doe 1 as someone who lied to benefit her immigration status in some way. Chen said there was no evidence that Jane Doe 1 received any such benefit or promises and credited her with testifying in open court during what he described as “hard times for migrants.”
The prosecutor said Prishker “preyed on two vulnerable individuals” and said jurors should note that Prishker was facing allegations from two different women for incidents that occurred a year apart from one another.
“Is this a coincidence? No, it’s a pattern. It’s a pattern of misconduct that cannot be ignored,” Chen said.
–City News Service
