Judges from California to Texas are letting violent Border Patrol agents loose in our communities and hiding it.
It is not enough that they have constant access to victims that they can then throw back into Mexico when they are done. Not enough that they have been running secret and illegal coverup teams since 1984 to get rid of the evidence of their crimes. It's not even enough that few ever believe their victims, choosing instead to eagerly ingest the idea of exceptionalism; that is what the US Border Patrol is all about. A workforce trained to believe that the people they are policing are "subhuman" is a workforce that believes they are above the law and one that will never accept being held accountable.
I cannot tell you when it started, who started it or how it happened, but all across our southern border, local judges from San Diego to Corpus Christi have figured out how to let violent Border Patrol agents get away with their crimes or at least reduce their sentences to slaps on the wrist. I am positive this is not just a Border Patrol fetish and that this preferential treatment extends to all police. I simply am focused on Border Patrol, and those are the trials I have witnessed or studied for the last ten years.
Based on my studies of court cases since the agency's inception in 1924, it is rare for a Border Patrol agent to be brought to trial much less convicted of anything. They are almost never charged with a crime committed while in uniform. Juries are extremely prejudiced when the defendant is wearing a badge. The agency allows fellow agents to crowd the court rooms and testify that their pals could not have done the things they are being accused of even when the accused have pleaded guilty. Judges often comment in their sentencing that they are perplexed on how someone could be a hero in the community and commit such horrific crimes.
All of this ignores the actual history of the agency and the rampant criminality of its agents who are five times more likely to be arrested than their fellow law enforcement officers from other agencies.
I began writing about the agency's high number of arrests during the first Trump administration when Carla Provost was chief. Media was focused on the agency because of child separation, and arrests of agents were reported on more frequently back then. Knowing the agency and its culture like I do, I believed that management would actively try and prevent these arrests from getting into the press once they realized I was tracking them, and it did not take long for my sources across the border to report this happening. Border Patrol management did in fact go to local police and sheriffs requesting that they work to keep arrests of Border Patrol agents out of the media. Agents are still being arrested at a high rate, but less than five percent are ever reported in the media. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics are proven year after year to be a large undercount.
But none of this manipulation was enough. Years ago, my sources across the border began telling me how the courts also work to keep these crimes secret, and how judges often abuse the system to let agents back into the communities they are terrorizing. I have spent the last five to six years witnessing and studying these cases all along the southern border. The agency and the courts would like us to think each of these cases are independent of each other and that there is not a separate justice system for cops, but that is not what I found. There is a shadow court system that is slightly different from court to court, yet allows for the same outcomes time and again.
It is fair to say that this shadow court system has always existed to some extent. The difference between now and the past is that today's courts and their employees must actively work to overcome the transparency systems and databases that exist to hold them accountable. They have intentionally created ways to circumvent the normal court system that is used for everyone else and prevented the press and public from seeing just how many agents are being arrested and charged with serious crimes.
This places our communities at risk.
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Campo Border Patrol agent Grayling Orvay Williams claimed he went down to the corner store after arguing with his girlfriend one day. Upon returning, he heard the gun shot. She had taken one of his personal guns and committed suicide.
The San Diego Sheriff's Office conducted the investigation, and according to family testimony was told the autopsy had been completed and that they could go ahead with plans for cremation. The family began to question the investigation only after the cremation when the medical examiner stated to them that there had been no autopsy because the investigators did not order one. All evidence had been destroyed.
It is illegal in California to not lock up your gun and ammunition. It is the ammunition charge that carries the heaviest sentence requiring the defendant to lose their gun rights for ten years. This would have prevented Agent Williams from maintaining his job. The failure to lock up the gun could have resulted in probation. I mentioned to the family that chances were that prosecutors would drop the more serious ammunition charge allowing Agent Williams to keep his job. This comment was not simply based in my experience as an agent, but because Agent Williams had two previous domestic violence charges that resulted in domestic violence prevention education classes instead of jail time, and he managed to still remain a Border Patrol agent.
Assigning agents to complete domestic violence prevention, alcohol and drug prevention and anger management classes is the courts' preferred method for keeping criminal agents in uniform. Postponing hearings and dragging the victims through years of extensions is not just used by agents and their attorneys to wear down the victims' desire for justice, it is also used to create conditions wherein the agents can perform for the judges. While court appointed victims' advocates who are paid by the prosecutors tell families they do not have to appear for every little status hearing, what the court is actually doing is monitoring the agents' progress on their classes. If the agents can stay out of trouble and complete the classes, most judges will let the agents off with no time served, or perhaps a small fine if anything. It is common for these records to then be either sealed or simply removed from record as part of the deal.
Do judges conduct this type of manipulation with defendants who are not cops? Yes, but not when the crimes are horrifically violent. The level of violence displayed by agents and their known past histories do not seem to matter to the prosecutors nor the judges when it is a Border Patrol agent involved.
But Agent Williams' girlfriend was dead, and she left behind two children and a grieving family. She had committed suicide using his personal gun, his ammunition and that was in direct violation of the law. When the family asked what they could do to ensure that the San Diego District Attorney's Office did not drop the ammunition charge because they believed he was dangerous, I suggested they send an email to them detailing their concerns. Within five minutes of receiving that email, the family received a call from the assistant district attorney demanding to know if they had hired an attorney.
The rub is that local prosecutors normally work with these agents to put smugglers of drugs behind bars. Prosecutors are law enforcement officers. They align themselves culturally and professionally more with cops than victims. While they claim to represent the victims, time and again they are proven to be conducting private meetings with the defendants' counsel where they make plea deals without any thought given to the victims. And while their victims' advocates are usually well-intentioned, they work and are paid for by the prosecutors' office. Their loyalty is to the prosecutors who are making deals with violent agents accused of heinous crimes.
Communications between the family and the assistant district attorney broke down after the email was sent, and then suddenly a sentencing date was announced. Unbeknownst to the family, they had offered the defendant a plea but would not tell the family the conditions. As this was during Covid shutdowns, I watched a live stream of the sentencing hearing. Just before the hearing started, a family member notified me that the assistant district attorney prosecuting the case was suddenly changed. As Judge Melinda J. Lasater entered the courtroom, I realized they had changed the judge as well. Lasater was a deputy district attorney for San Diego in the 1970s, before joining the superior court bench in the 1990s.
Right away Judge Lasater admitted she knew little of the case but that the parties involved had
reached a plea agreement. The new prosecutor stated she was unsure as well, but was assured from the previous prosecutor that everything was agreed upon by all parties. The judge reiterated the point for the record. That's when a family member stood up and demanded to be heard. She told the court about the family's wishes that the charge be the ammunition charge because of his history of domestic violence which included alleged calls to local deputies in the past where they allegedly defended Agent Williams and talked her sister into not filing charges. She spoke of how the family had not been included in the discussions of the plea and that they had not agreed to the plea contrary to what the prosecution was saying.
Judge Lasater stated the family's statements were recorded and then proceeded to sentence Agent Williams to probation for the gun charge and dropped the ammunition charge. Judge Lasater and the prosecutor only referred to the charges according to their statute numbers, and the family left the courtroom not even understanding that the ammunition charge was dropped.
Agent Williams kept his job.
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Over in the Superior Court of California in Imperial County, judges and prosecutors are doing the same thing with extremely violent Border Patrol agents. In 2022, the president of the El Centro Border Patrol Sector's Union was arrested for putting his loaded duty weapon to his mouth and exclaiming he wanted to kill himself and then turning the weapon and pointing it at his then girlfriend's head while stating he wanted to kill her. This was all caught on video which I and all judges involved in this case have seen. The victim requested the video not be released as she was keenly aware of how agents are routinely let go by these judges and recognized that should it be released, her life would be in further danger.
Originally, Agent Michael Matzke was charged with two serious violent felonies and five misdemeanors. The court and prosecutor allowed the defendant and his attorney to drag the case out for several years. During that time, Agent Matzke was ordered to attend alcohol and anger management classes. Once he completed those classes, Judge Christopher Plourd and Assistant District Attorney Eric Alizade agreed to throw out all violent felony charges and instead charged him $100 for vandalism. Even though Agent Matzke's crimes were clearly documented on video, even though Border Patrol Chief Owens issued a termination letter to the defendant stating that he believed Matzke should be terminated because of his actions regardless of if he beat the charges, he still kept his job.
You can read about this case in detail here.
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When Border Patrol agents are arrested for sexual crimes, judges along the southern border are more likely to let the agents out on bond than they are other defendants accused of the same crimes. On May 21, 2019, Tucson Sector Border Patrol agent Steven Holmes was arrested for three counts of sexual assault and three counts of aggravated assault for strangulation of his victims. These alleged assaults occurred over a seven year period starting in 2012. Even though the first victim reported her assault in 2012 to Tucson police during Holmes hiring process, the agency still hired him.
Seven years later, Agent Holmes was arraigned in Pima County by Judge Kimberly Ortiz who originally set the bond at $25,000 cash only. This is considered a low bond for a violent sexual crime, especially when multiple victims were involved. The defense attorney noted that Agent Holmes could not make the cash only bond but could swing an unsecured bond at that same amount. Judge Ortiz changed the bond and allowed Agent Holmes to return to working for the Border Patrol while wearing an ankle monitor. The Border Patrol stated he was placed on administrative duties. In all, Holmes was indicted on fourteen counts by a grand jury.
Thanks to Judge Kimberly Ortiz changing her order and allowing Agent Holmes out on bond, he was able to sexually assault and strangle another victim in August of 2021. He was promptly arrested again and thankfully a different judge did not allow a bond. For her part, Judge Ortiz was promoted with an appointment by then Governor Doug Ducey to the Superior Court of Arizona, Pima County in July of 2021 just one month before Agent Holmes offended again.
In 2022, Agent Holmes was finally convicted on eleven counts of sexual assault and domestic violence. Although this case resulted in prison time, it is unknown how many became victims once the court allowed him out on bond. Had he not reoffended, chances were decent that a judge would have let him go with lesser charges and domestic violence classes. All the victims had met Agent Holmes on a dating app aside from the one who that worked with him at Border Patrol. As it turned out, that victim lost her case in court because she was seen as a willing participant.
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Most recently, another Pima County Superior Court judge let a high ranking Border Patrol agent go with lifetime probation after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two of his children. Border Patrol agent Efren Lopez Cornejo wasn't just any agent, he was a special operations BORTAC agent and a deputy commander. For eleven years, in two different relationships, Agent Cornejo targeted his own daughters to satisfy his sexual desires. One was his step-daughter; the other his biological daughter. Neither knew the other was a victim.
The following are police reports that describe Agent Cornejo's horrific crimes against his own children. CONTENT WARNING: though all graphic comments were redacted by the court, readers are advised to use caution.
The court, prosecutors, defense and court staff kept this alleged pedophile Border Patrol agent case out of the database according to Arizona law ARS123. (I will go into further detail about this unbelievable law that is used to shield predators instead of protecting victims.) Agent Cornejo was arrested at the Tucson Border Patrol Sector headquarters in 2021. This case was not known publicly until December of 2024.
The agency and the Pima County court system prevented Tucson area residents from knowing an alleged repeat child molester was free in their neighborhoods for nearly four years.
Cornejo was allowed to travel and be free during this time. A trial was held in secret away from the press and public leaving the jury hung on their decision not because they could not agree that he had committed these acts, but as to whether the acts met the definition of the charges as "continuous." Then a plea was offered. In exchange for pleading guilty, all fourteen counts of child molestation and exposing his genitals to these children for over eleven years were dropped down to just two counts: one of indecent exposure and one of child molestation.
Judge Casey McGinley allowed many Border Patrol BORTAC agents to testify as to how they would allow Cornejo to be around their children and that he could not have done what he was in fact pleading guilty to. The victims and their families demanded the maximum of three years in prison. But Judge McGinley noted in his sentencing that he would only sentence on the two charges as if none of the others existed; meaning he would view this as a single mistake instead of the eleven years and at least two victims that it was. Even when the court stated the defendant must admit and accept responsibility for his actions, the defense refused to do so and stated that Cornejo was only pleading guilty because he did not "want his family to suffer through another trial." Which was odd, since he didn't seem to care about putting them through the first trial.
Yet, Judge McGinley allowed the plea even with the refusal to accept responsibility. The court continued on a long diatribe about how if the defendant offended again, he would find himself before the same judge and then he would really be in trouble. Judge McGinley literally stated that he believed letting an admitted pedophile go with lifetime probation was safer for the public than keeping him in prison. To top it off, the prosecutor and the judge agreed to not require Cornejo to register as a sex offender.
In the judge's own words, Cornejo presented a "dichotomy" to the court. On the one hand, he was a hero to the nation serving in an elite law enforcement group. On the other, he was sexually assaulting his children. Judge McGinley admitted that all the educational programs ordered by the court were completed by Cornejo. He did everything the court demanded, and in the judge's view, that meant he would not reoffend. Cornejo was fined $3,000 for child molestation of one child, not a cent for the other.
I imagine he was at the bar that night with his fellow BORTAC agents.
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This is the system when agents are charged with crimes: drag out the cases for years, have agents go through educational classes, pay fines, and then the prosecutors and judges drop or lower the charges and give light sentences if anything at all. This is a "shadow legal system" developed by courts that requires cooperation from many actors. This system is not afforded to other defendants accused of the same crimes. Judges on the southern border seem to believe they can just order violent agents to a few educational classes and that is good enough. They can just erase their cases or never put them in the data systems, or worse yet, seal the cases so that no one will ever know the truth.
These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. In the rare instances when agents are held accountable, we the public never know the whole truth. The Border Patrol refuses to release the employee records of agents convicted of crimes. For all we know, they molested, raped, assaulted and strangled migrants every week they were serving.