A Tucson Sector Border Patrol agent has been indicted on 24 felony charges, including 10 counts of child sex trafficking, the latest in a series of sexual-misconduct convictions or charges against U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees in Arizona.
Willcox border agent Bart Conrad Yager, 39, was also charged with six counts of “pandering,” or encouraging someone to engage in prostitution; one count of attempted child sex trafficking; and two counts of fraud, between July 2023 and March 2024 in Cochise County, indictments from the Cochise County Attorney’s Office show.
On Thursday, county prosecutors also charged Yager with five drug-related felonies: possession or use of the anabolic steroid trenbolone and testosterone; sale or transportation of trenbolone and testosterone; and possession of drug paraphernalia, all in 2025.
A CBP spokesman said the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility arrested Yager in Willcox on June 17, and executed a search warrant based on allegations of child sex trafficking, fraudulent schemes and pandering.
They only hire the best (rapists)!
A decade ago, Yager was the suspect in a now-closed Tucson, Arizona rape case. But CBP never investigated the allegations against Yager, according to a CBP special agent’s statement filed in Cochise County Superior Court. The statement was first reported by the Herald/Review Media.
He's by no means alone, though:
Yager is the latest of several Arizona-based CBP employees, including border agents and a port officer in CBP’s Office of Field Operations, who have been charged with or convicted of sexual misconduct and other crimes.
Yuma Sector border agent Ramon Marquez, 31, was arrested in May and has been charged with 15 felonies, including 14 counts of sexual conduct with a 16-year-old between December 2024 and April 2025, and one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, such as filming or photographing the encounter, according to a May 15 indictment in Yuma County Superior Court.
CBP port officer Aaron Thomas Mitchell, 30, was sentenced to 27 years in prison in March, after being convicted on federal charges of abducting and sexually assaulting a 15-year-old Douglas middle school student in 2022. Mitchell now faces state charges in Cochise County.
An investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Douglas Police Department found Mitchell approached the student as she waited for school to start, identified himself as a law enforcement officer and ordered her into his car. He then drove her to his home, where he sexually assaulted her for hours, according to a U.S. Justice Department statement.
In January, former Tucson Sector Border Patrol agent Efren Lopez Cornejo was sentenced to two counts of lifetime probation, but no jail time, after he accepted an October 2024 plea agreement, admitting to one count of child abuse and one count of indecent exposure.
Lopez Cornejo was initially charged with 14 felonies in 2021, including child molestation, sexual abuse of a minor and sexual conduct with a minor under 15, which allegedly took place mostly between 2011 and 2017. The two victims were family members, and one was 9 when the alleged abuse started, an interim complaint said.
As you might already have gleaned, it's part of the CBP culture:
Critics and civil rights advocates say a long-standing lack of accountability and weak oversight within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — the parent agency of CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE — has meant agents haven’t faced consequences for abusive behavior, sexual harassment of colleagues and excessive use of force in the field.
“Abuse by CBP agents is not an issue of just a few rogue agents, but is a systemic problem across the agency that has existed from its very start,” said Ricky Garza, border policy counsel for the Southern Border Communities Coalition, which advocates for “rational” immigration policies, humane and accountable border-enforcement practices and quality of life in border communities.
“The agency has a longstanding culture of impunity, of racism, of abuse and use of force against people in the border region,” Garza said...
