‘I felt fear’: Woman testifies against Border Patrol agent facing sexual battery charge in San Diego

A woman testifying in a criminal case against a former Border patrol agent told the court Friday that the agent, who had worked for years in San Diego’s border region, reached under her clothing and touched her breasts during a 2022 incident. 

Identified in the court as Jane Doe, the woman was the first of four witnesses to take the stand in a preliminary hearing during which Superior Court Judge David Berry weighed whether there was sufficient evidence for charges against the agent to continue to trial. 

In October, the San Diego County Deputy District Attorney’s Office charged Juan Prishker, a former Border Patrol agent of nearly 20 years, with one felony count of sexual battery, one felony count of false imprisonment and four misdemeanor counts of “obscene matter” stemming from three alleged incidents between December 2022 and January 2024. 

Berry tossed out the misdemeanor charges against Prishker, who the government alleged showed photos of male genitals to an aid worker and three vloggers. Berry found that the photo, which was introduced in court, did not meet the requirement for the charges of obscene matter. 

Berry did, however, find probable cause for the two felony charges, the sexual battery charge involving Doe and false imprisonment charge involving the aid worker, Karen Parker, who alleged Prishker blocked her between their vehicles after showing her the photos. 

Parker told the court she was near the border that evening looking for help for a migrant family with a medical issue. Parker said Prishker rested his hand on his service weapon during the incident and didn’t use physical force against her. The judge declined a motion from Prishker’s attorney to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor, saying that there was sufficient evidence that Prishker was “menacing.” 

“He is a uniformed federal officer on duty and someone has come to him for help,” Berry said.  

In June, inewsource published an investigation into Parker’s allegations against Prishker and an incident captured in a video posted online which appeared to show a Border Patrol agent, identified in court on Friday as Prishker, sharing a photo of genitals to a group of vloggers. Prishker has since resigned from the Border Patrol. 

The criminal charges months later revealed a new allegation, from Doe, going back a year before Parker’s alleged incident with Prishker. Until Friday, few details about Doe or her allegations had been made public. 

In court, Doe said she had just crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. when two Border Patrol agents found her and led her to another area where Prishker arrived in a patrol van and the other agents left. 

With her hands against the van, Doe said, Prishker started searching her. Then, she said, he reached his hand under her shirt and bra and touched her breasts for about two minutes. Then he continued to pat her down on her legs over her clothes. 

“To be honest I was scared. I felt fear,” the woman said through an interpreter. 

Doe said she saw Prishker do the same thing to another woman being searched who was standing near her with her hands against the van. Doe said Prishker put both women, who were not handcuffed, in the van and transported them to an immigration facility. 

On the way there, Doe said, the other woman asked her if Prishker touched her breasts. At the immigration facility, Doe reported details of the event to immigration officials. 

Prishker’s defense attorney, Kerry Armstrong, questioned Doe about her account in court, including how long he allegedly touched her, and reports from those officials taken in the days following the alleged incident. Armstrong asked whether she told agents who initially found her that she wanted to be let go, whether she tried to leave, and whether she was inside or outside the van when she allegedly saw Prishker touch the other woman. 

Doe said she was paroled into the U.S. several days later and currently works in the fields as a farmworker. She spoke quietly and stared downward during her testimony, rarely raising her gaze except for the moment she was asked to identify Prishker: She stared directly at him and pointed at him from across the room.

Later, San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Chen called Parker to the stand. Parker testified that in December 2023, Prishker showed her two photos of genitals while she was providing aid to migrants near the border. 

Parker said it was dark outside when she drove up to Prishker’s patrol vehicle near the border, and after getting out of their vehicles, Prishker allegedly showed her the photos and blocked her near the ends of their vehicles. Parker also said Prishker asked her, “What’s the difference between good and evil?”

“What he did to me was vulgar. He scared me to death. Showing me a picture of his private parts and speaking like a psychotic person. This is an individual in uniform with a badge and a service weapon,” she told the court. 

Armstrong questioned Parker’s telling of what happened over time, asking why initial law enforcement reports didn’t include the allegation that Prishker blocked her. He also asked her about how she described the incident in a social media post.

Last year, Parker filed a claim for $6 million and later a civil lawsuit against Prishker and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of Border Patrol for damages for emotional distress, negligence and false imprisonment. The lawsuit is still pending.

Chen also called Robert Hopper, a criminal investigator for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, who testified that he interviewed the three vloggers involved in the alleged incident from January 2024. 

Chen played a video in the court from Hopper’s investigation, the same video which inewsource previously reported on. Hopper testified that the vloggers in the video confirmed that Prishker showed them a photo of genitals.

The group, whose videos feature vulgar, provocative humor, was by the border in early January, but they were not present at the hearing on Friday. 

A part of the video that was not shown in the courtroom also showed a woman in the group who identified herself as an adult film actress showing her breasts to Prishker. After Prishker shows them his phone, they laugh and make jokes in the video. 

Rafael Garcia, who investigates misconduct for CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, took the stand briefly to testify that he investigated allegations against Prishker involving Doe. 

Prishker did not take the stand on Friday. Berry scheduled the next hearing for May.