MCALLEN, Texas — Attorney’s representing a Honduran woman, her daughter and another underage girl are suing the U.S. government after a U.S. Border Patrol Agent raped them, tortured them and then left them for dead. Rather than be captured, the agent ended up killing himself.
This reporter broke the story of the brutal actions and eventual suicide by the agent in March 2014 while working for another news outlet. Since that time, this reporter found out that the agent had kept duct tape, zip ties and other suspicious items in his patrol vehicle pointing to a sense of pre-meditation and likelihood that the agent may have tried this before.
The victims who are only identified as MDCG, NLMC (15-years-old) and JMAE (14-years-old) in the lawsuit are seeking more than $1million each in damages. The victims are currently living legally in Virginia after having been granted legal status.
One of the main claims in the lawsuit which was obtained by Breitbart Texas, points to negligence on the part of the management of various federal agencies for hiring and retaining USBP Agent Esteban Manzanares.
Esteban Manzanares
Breitbart Texas has independently confirmed that when Manzanares was hired by the U.S. Border Patrol, the agency required polygraph testing but did not require psychological evaluations of their new hires.
The lawsuit also claims that the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not carry out a proper investigation on Manzanares prior to to the rapes on March 2014. “Particularly in view of prior complaints/evidence of his abuse, assaults, and/or excessive use of force by Officer Manzanares with regard to females while previously performing authorized duties or otherwise on duty,” the lawsuit alleges.
Breitbart Texas has independently confirmed that prior to the assault of the immigrants, Manzanares had been under investigation by the office of personnel management (similar to internal affairs) by another agency within the umbrella of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Prior to working in the Rio Grande Valley, Manzanares had worked as an border patrol agent in Falfurrias.
On March 12, 2014 the three females from Honduras had crossed into the United States illegally and had been sitting by a dirt road in the town of Abram, Texas in the region known as the Rio Grande Valley. As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, illegal aliens from Central American countries have been turning themselves in to immigration authorities with the knowledge that they will be released with a notice to appear in court. Human smugglers have been calling the notice to appear a “permiso” in order to dupe illegal aliens into thinking they will be getting a permit to stay.
That is when Agent Manzanares arrested them, but rather than take them to be processed at the U.S. Border Patrol Station in McAllen, he ended up taking the women to a remote area. According to the lawsuit once in that remote area, Manzanares got the adult woman out and took her by foot to brushy area where he beat her and sexually assaulted her. The agent tried to break her neck and also sliced her arms with a knife. The woman lost consciousness and when she came to she played dead until Manzanares left her. That is when she ran for help and ended up running into other agents who tried to help.
With only two women in the vehicle, Manzanares drove to another location where he also sexually assaulted her, tortured her and then began to take pictures of the victim. Manzanares then also tried to kill her and left her for dead.
Manzanares then took the youngest girl to his apartment where according to the lawsuit “Manzanares cut away JMAE’s clothing, forcibly bathed her and tied her to a bed.” For several hours the teen was raped, photographed and tortured until law enforcement arrived and Manzanares killed himself.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
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