The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is investigating the sexual abuse of an immigrant by an officer, a fact about which there would be a video.
The recording was found on an electronic device belonging to Shantal Hernández, an agent who handled immigrant complaints at the Otay Mesa, California, detention center, according to a report from univision.
That video is now one of the central pieces of evidence in the criminal indictment against Hernández, who is facing charges before the Southern District of California Court.
The 36-year-old ICE officer was a case manager in San Diego for the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO), the report indicates.
The OIDO is an independent office created by Congress to address the claims of detained immigrants.
“This woman faces a charge of sexual abuse of a person under her responsibility,” the report states. “If convicted, she could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison and fined $250,000.”
The immigrant’s name was not revealed, but the report indicates that he was located with his initials: IKN, this as part of the internal investigation at ICE.
“ICE detectives from the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) obtained phone records from the Otay Mesa detention center and confirmed that the defendant had ‘sexually explicit’ conversations with the detainee, through phone calls and electronic communications,” the report states. .
In one of the calls, Hernández even told the victim that he had a video of one of the sexual acts they had.
“The agents executed a search warrant in which they found a copy of one of those videos,” it says.
ICE has faced several complaints and lawsuits for abuses of immigrants, including accusations of performing sterilization operations on women.
