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The jury of 10 men and two women disbelieved testimony by defendant Dennis M. Johnson that the sex he had with the 21-year-old victim was consensual, said foreman Kenneth Hofstra.
Jurors were unwilling to look past the image painted by prosecutors of the woman at the desolate Cochise County crime scene: naked, handcuffed and on her knees, performing oral sex on Johnson.
"The evidence on both counts that was most telling was the fact that the defendant admitted he had handcuffed (the victim) with her hands behind the back," Hofstra said. "That flew in the face of the idea that it was consensual."
When the jury began deliberations, it was split with seven members favoring conviction, three favoring acquittal and two undecided, Hofstra said. The five became convinced of Johnson's guilt when they considered the facts that the victim was confined, naked and handcuffed, Hofstra said.
Johnson "used his authority to prey on the weak and the defenseless," Assistant U.S. Attorney SeanChapman said.
Johnson, 36, was stoic as a clerk read the verdict in U.S. District Court, but Johnson's wife sobbed and hugged her mother. The couple has six children, four from previous marriages and two together.
Johnson is free on bond until his April 30 sentencing, at which U.S. District Judge Raner Collins could sentence him to more than 20 years in prison.
The incident began the night of Sept. 28, 2000, when a group of entrants who jumped the border traveled in a car to the Tombstone checkpoint. Johnson, an acting supervisor that night, separated the woman from the rest of the group and took her in his own Border Patrol vehicle.
Johnson testified he did so because a vehicle used to transport the entrant group was full. He did not report to dispatchers that he was taking a lone woman in his vehicle, as required by Border Patrol rules. Neither did he fill out paperwork on the woman or take her to be fingerprinted - also violations.
Johnson testified that as he drove her toward Douglas, the woman proposed doing him a sexual favor in exchange for her freedom. He said he declined several times before making what he called the biggest mistake of his life in agreeing.
The victim denied making any such offer.
Johnson reversed course and drove back past Tombstone to a remote spot west of the San Pedro River, prosecutors said. There he had her remove her clothes and handcuffed her.
The woman testified against Johnson for the second time last week. Prosecutors Chapman and David Flannigan said the victim cried as she carried out Johnson's demand.
Afterward, Johnson drove the woman to the Naco Port of Entry and dropped her off, but a Mexican immigration inspector discovered she was Salvadoran and sent her back to American immigration. That's when she told another Border Patrol agent of the assault.
The agent called the Cochise County Sheriff's Department, which contacted the Justice Department Office of Inspector General. Johnson admitted the details of the sexual contact to investigators Oct. 2 and guided them to the scene.
Officers arrested Johnson the next day. He resigned from the Border Patrol last year.
Defense attorney Mike Storie argued at the end of the five-day trial that the victim changed her story several times and therefore was not credible.
"Let's not mistake her for some sort of babe in the woods," Storie said.
Flannigan, a deputy Cochise County attorney, called the defense argument an attempt to "turn the victim into the perpetrator."
Under federal law, Johnson had the right to be tried in federal court because he was a federal agent. But he was convicted of state charges.
Hofstra, the jury foreman, said the panel gave the victim's illegal status in the country "no weight whatsoever."
By entering the country illegally, he said, "she did not abrogate her rights to the protection of the law of the United States."
Reporter Joseph Barrios contributed to this report.
Contact Tim Steller at 434-4086 or steller@azstarnet.com
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