U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Luis Uribe told a jury Tuesday he “never raped anybody.”
He visited prostitutes and hid it from his wife, he said. But he assured jurors that “no means no.” And “stop means stop.” And he swore he “never hit a woman” in his life — “ever.”
Then, when a prosecutor asked the federal officer accused of sexual assault whether he’d used “physical fitness time” to get away from work for one of his alleged attacks, Uribe quipped in front of the jury, “I still got a good workout in.”
“You’re describing the rape … as a good workout?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shih asked Uribe, incredulously.
“It wasn’t a rape,” Uribe shot back. “It was consensual sex.”
Uribe spent a little more than an hour trying to explain himself Tuesday, as his trial nears its end at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. Prosecutors and defense attorneys have each rested their case, setting the stage for closing arguments and jury deliberations.
But first, Uribe told jurors he’d been threatened by a supervisor in a Chinese prostitution ring who asked him repeatedly for help with immigration issues, only to have him shoot her down.
He said the the woman wound up warning him by te...