Former Border Patrol Agent sentenced in assault case

McALLEN — A former U.S. Border Patrol agent who had previously been convicted of violating the civil rights of a woman by sexually assaulting her was sentenced to 184 months, or more than 15 years, in federal prison.
On Friday afternoon, 45-year-old Scott Anthony Sullivan, went before Chief U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa for sentencing. Sullivan could have faced life in prison for the crime.
Sullivan was convicted in April 2007 after a jury found him guilty. He originally was indicted in September 2005.
Federal law prohibits a law enforcement officer acting under color of law from depriving a person of any right protected and secured by the U.S. Constitution, including the right to not be deprived of liberty without due process of law, including the right to bodily integrity.
According to court records, the case occurred in March 2003, when Sullivan was working at the Falfurrias checkpoint. He pulled aside for further inspection a 23-year-old woman who was born in the U.S. but had grown up in Mexico.
According to trial testimony, Sullivan waved the woman’s family through but kept her birth certificate and told her he would return it to her later in the day at the bus station in Falfurrias. After meeting the woman at the bus station, rather than return her birth certificate, he took her to a nearby motel where he sexually assaulted her at least three times. The following day, he drove the woman to the bus station, where he gave the woman her birth certificate, a bus ticket to Dallas and $20.