A New York woman sobbed at the end of a lengthy day on the witness stand Thursday, after she insisted she’d been “robbed and raped” by a man rumored to be a “fake cop” during a visit to Chicago’s northwest suburbs in 2022.
She testified during the trial of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Luis Uribe, 45. Not only did Uribe work a real job in law enforcement, federal prosecutors say he used his gun and badge to sexually assault four women in Schaumburg and Naperville.
But confusion abounded when Uribe’s defense attorney tried to sort through the details of the woman’s visit to the suburb of Schaumburg. The woman is a native of China who became a U.S. citizen in 2003. She speaks little English, so she testified with help from a translator.
She struggled when it came time to identify Uribe in the courtroom. She told Uribe’s attorney he had things “all messed up” as he tried to identify associates she referred to as “pretty girl,” “beauty” or “sister.”
However, the woman gave a clear answer when a prosecutor asked what happened to her.
“He robbed me of my money,” she said. “He raped me.”
The feds say Uribe committed six attacks between February and October 2022, but his attorney told jurors Wednesday he’d been set up by a prostitution ring overseen by a boss in China. He admitted Uribe visited prostitutes and is a “flawed” human being, but he said there’s no proof that Uribe robbed and raped the women, as prosecutors allege.
The 67-year-old woman who testified Thursday told jurors she came to Chicago in October 2022 because a friend of hers wanted her “to check out some casinos here.” She said she referred to the friend as “beauty,” and she brought along $3,000.
She also acknowledged she’d seen a photo of Uribe on the social messaging app WeChat, and she was told he was a “fake cop.”
The photo was taken during a meeting at a seafood buffet in Hoffman Estates, according to the feds.
The woman was attacked while staying in a Schaumburg Days Inn, jurors heard. The woman explained Thursday how she heard a knock on her hotel room door and opened it, thinking it was a member of the hotel staff.
That’s when a man rushed in, she said, wearing a hat, a black jacket and pants.
“Immediately he closed the door and he showed a badge,” the woman testified.
He pushed a chair against the door, put the badge and a gun on a table, and asked for cash, she said. The woman told jurors she gave him “all my money.”
“I was terrified,” she said. “He had a gun.”
She said he forced her to take off her clothes and perform oral sex. Then, she said, he pulled her to the bed and raped her. When it was over, she said he pushed her into the shower area, put his clothing back on and escaped.
The woman said she tried to tell the hotel staff she’d been robbed, but she struggled because of her difficulty with English. So she went to a woman she’d met earlier at the hotel — who also happened to be Chinese.
Early in her testimony, prosecutors asked the alleged victim to identify Uribe in the courtroom. She initially failed to do so and eventually broke down crying, prompting a break in the proceedings. But later, while describing the attack, she pointed and told the translator she’d seen someone who “might be that person.”
During his cross-examination, defense attorney Michael Clancy asked the woman whether a “boss believed that you were coming to Chicago to work for her and [to] be a sex worker?” The woman said she “didn’t agree” to that arrangement.
“At my old age, I only agreed to come here to check it out to play,” the woman said, referring to the casinos.
Still, she admitted learning the second Chinese woman at the hotel was a sex worker.
Before testimony wrapped for the day, jurors heard the initial testimony of that second woman, who is 54 and also lives in New York. She acknowledged for prosecutors that she did massage work with “a sexual component” and had a “boss” who found her clients.
She said her boss sent her to the Chicago area in 2022 and showed her the photo of Uribe at the seafood buffet. Then, during her stay at the Schaumburg Days Inn, she said she encountered the first woman “in a terrible state, ready to cry” — and pointing to a photo.
The woman allegedly told her, “the fake police robbed her and raped her.”