Checkered FBI cop convicted of child rape in Alabama

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A former FBI agent was convicted Friday of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl while working as an Alabama state trooper — a law enforcement job he got even after being given out of the FBI in the middle earlier. claims he raped a co-worker at knifepoint.

Christopher Bauer’s case, detailed for the first time in an Associated Press investigation, showed how he was able to hide a checkered past and move from one job to another with the help of an allegedly forged letter that made appears to be “eligible for reemployment”.

Bauer, 44, was found guilty of first-degree sodomy and sexual abuse of a child under 12 following a weeklong trial in which his lawyers argued the girl made up the allegations. Sentencing was scheduled for August 1.

Bauer, who has been jailed since his 2021 arrest, faces similar allegations of child sexual abuse outside of New Orleans. Louisiana State Police said Friday they plan to extradite him following proceedings in Alabama.

Messages were sent to Bauer’s attorneys seeking comment. Bauer did not respond to a letter the AP sent to him in prison.

During the Alabama trial, the child, now a young teenager, tearfully testified that she was repeatedly abused by Bauer over a period of years, too scared to say no or tell anyone what was happening .

Jurors also saw a recording of the child’s 2021 interview with a child abuse investigator in which she described the same abuse.

The AP is withholding some details of the allegations to protect the girl’s identity. Law enforcement became involved after the child eventually told a friend, and the friend’s parent alerted the school.

Bauer took the stand and testified in his own defense during the trial, answering “no, never” when asked if he abused or sodomized the child.

“If he said I did something to him, then yes, that’s a lie,” he told the cross-examination.

Bauer’s time with the FBI was not discussed in detail at trial. The judge granted a defense request to exclude statements about a colleague’s allegations in Louisiana that he raped her with a knife.

The FBI said Bauer forged a letter that cleared his record and helped pave the way for his hiring by the Alabama State Police in 2019. The document, obtained by the AP, confirmed his decade of “credible service” and considered “eligible for rehire.”

After Bauer’s arrest, the FBI told the AP that the letter in question was not “legitimate,” but declined to comment on its subsequent investigation. Federal authorities have not charged Bauer but were prepared to do so if he were released from state custody, according to two former law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the federal investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Bauer’s arrest came amid a reckoning in which the FBI pledged to crack down on sexual misconduct following AP reporting that found a pattern of supervisors avoiding discipline and retiring with full benefits even after allegations of sexual misconduct against them have were substantiated.

The case also highlights the decertification system in the United States, where problem officers have remained in law enforcement by joining a new agency or moving to another state. For years, federal law enforcement agencies have not provided data on fired or disciplined agents to the National Decertification Index.

Alabama authorities either overlooked or were unaware of Bauer’s prior misconduct. The AP investigation found that he omitted his termination from the FBI in his application to the Alabama State Police, including that he was suspended without pay and stripped of his security clearance in 2018 amid a string of sexual misconduct allegations against him. faced working in New Orleans of the FBI. office. An internal investigation found that Bauer, at least, violated FBI policy, including having sex in an FBI vehicle.

Many of the allegations unfolded in Louisiana court records that were public for a year when Bauer was employed at Alabama. The woman who accused him of rape, a colleague of Bauer’s at the FBI, wrote in a petition for a restraining order that Bauer choked her and made her “fear for my life.”

Bauer disputed those claims, telling colleagues the acts were consensual. But the woman previously told the AP that Bauer sexually assaulted her so often that her hair began to fall out.

“It was a year of torture,” she said. “It would keep me up for days. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep and in six months I went from 150 pounds to 92 pounds. I was physically dying because of what he did to me.”

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Mustian reported from Miami.

___ Contact AP’s global investigative team at (email protected) or https://www.ap.org/tips/

Kim Chandler and Jim Mustian, Associated Press