Ex-US Homeland Security agent gets life for sex assaults

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A former U.S. Homeland Security special agent was sentenced to life in federal prison Monday for sexually assaulting two women he silenced by telling them he was “above the law.”

John Jacob Olivas, 48, of Riverside was sentenced by a judge who said he had engaged in “systematic torture of women” and his victims would “live with this trauma for the rest of their lives,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.

Last December, Olivas was found guilty of three counts of deprivation of rights under color of law.

Olivas began his career with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2007 and resigned in 2015 after working for more than six years as a Homeland Security special agent.

Olivas attacked both women in 2012, prosecutors said.

One victim testified that Olivas tried to rape her “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” because of his federal position, the U.S. attorney’s office statement said.

The woman also said Olivas told her that he could make her “disappear,” have her arrested on fake charges or have her children taken from her, the statement said.

Olivas also raped another woman on two separate occasions. She testified that Olivas made comments that led her to believe he couldn’t be touched by the criminal justice system, and before the first rape threatened her with his service gun, authorities said.

Olivas showed his Homeland Security credentials to both victims and asserted “that he was above the law,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.