RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - California, Central), published as received.
RIVERSIDE, California – A former special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) was found guilty by a jury today of federal civil rights violations for sexually assaulting two women and abusing his official position to prevent them from reporting his violent conduct.
John Jacob Olivas, 48, of Riverside, was found guilty of three counts of deprivation of rights under color of law. Olivas was ordered remanded into federal custody after today’s verdict was read.
According to evidence presented at his 11-day trial, Olivas began his career with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2007 and resigned in September 2015 after working as an HSI special agent for just over six years. He sexually assaulted the two victims in 2012.
Olivas attempted to rape one woman in January 2012 after making it clear to her that the police would not be responsive to any report she would make about Olivas because he was “above a cop,” and “untouchable” and “invisible” to police due to his position as a federal agent, according to the victim’s trial testimony. Olivas also threatened the victim that he could make her “disappear,” have her children taken from her, and get her arrested on fake criminal charges, the victim testified.
Olivas raped another woman in September 2012 and then again in November 2012. Both times, Olivas made it clear to the victim that police would not respond to any report she might make about attacks by him, causing the victim to believe that he was “invincible” to the criminal justice system, the victim testified. She also testified at trial that Olivas pointed his HSI-issued service weapon into her back moments before he sexually assaulted her in September 2012.
Both victims endured Olivas’s “violent, escalating, controlling, and intimidating behavior, which included his repeated brandishing of HSI credentials to [them] and asserting that he was above the law,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. In all three sexual assaults, Olivas violated the victims’ constitutional rights to liberty and bodily integrity.
United States District Judge Jesus G. Bernal scheduled a March 11, 2023 sentencing hearing, at which time Olivas will face a statutory maximum sentence of life in federal prison.
The FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Professional Responsibility investigated this matter.
Assistant United States Attorneys Eli A. Alcaraz of the Riverside Branch Office and Frances S. Lewis of the General Crimes Section are prosecuting this case.
