No grand jury issues in Border Patrol agent sexual assault case, judge says

Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune on Sep 2, 2026

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CHICAGO — A federal judge ruled Wednesday there was no evidence of any inappropriate grand jury conduct by prosecutors in the case of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent charged with robbing and sexually assaulting prostitutes in Chicago-area hotel rooms.

Lawyers for Luis Uribe had asked U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso to look at the grand jury materials in the case after learning the same “tainted” grand jury had also handled the now-dismissed “Broadview Six” case that collapsed amid allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

In denying the defense request to dismiss Uribe’s charges, Alonso said in a written ruling he reviewed the grand jury transcripts and found “no structural defect” or “reasonable factual foundation to support a finding of potential prejudice.”

The judge also noted that the Broadview Six case was handled by a different prosecutor and concerned issues that are “entirely unrelated to Uribe.”

“The crimes at issue in this case—as charged, that Uribe sexually assaulted certain women under color of law—are unrelated to the Broadview Six protests against the detention of immigrants at ICE’s Broadview detention facility,” Alonso’s four-page order stated.

The ruling clears the way for Uribe to go to trial next week.

Uribe, 45, was charged in an indictment unsealed in December with 10 counts of deprivation of civil rights under color of law and one count of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. If convicted, Uribe faces a mandatory minimum seven years in federal prison and a maximum of life.

Prosecutors alleged Uribe used his service weapon and badge to force victims — who were all of Chinese descent — to submit to sex or provide him with cash on six separate occasions in 2022. One of the four victims was attacked three different times, prosecutors said.

At the time of the alleged offenses, Uribe, a U.S. Marines veteran, was a CBP officer assigned “primarily” to O’Hare International Airport and worked on both customs and immigration issues.

The defense effort to get the charges dismissed was the latest example of continuing fallout from the Broadview Six debacle, which has led to charges being reduced or dismissed against half a dozen other defendants so far and prompted calls from Democrats for U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros to step down.

U.S. District Judge April Perry is still weighing whether to hold an evidentiary hearing on sanctions, as well as requests to appoint special counsel to investigate potential criminal contempt claims. Another judge canceled a similar inquiry after the government agreed to drop charges in a COVID-19 fraud case related to Loretto Hospital.

Uribe’s attorney, Michael Clancy, was also pushing for an evidentiary hearing on the matter.

“The need for a hearing follows from a basic principle of fairness: a defendant should not be made to bear the consequence of the government’s own failure to create a complete record,” Clancy wrote last week.

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