Chinese immigrant “Tina” had lived in the U.S. for nearly two decades when she says she booked a flight to Chicago four years ago to see a friend and maybe do a little gambling.
But instead of a fun time checking out a new city, her trip turned into a nightmare, Tina testified in a federal courtroom Thursday.
On the night of Oct. 2, 2022, there was a knock at her room at the Days Inn in suburban Schaumburg, Tina told the jury. Thinking it might be a hotel employee bringing her a requested replacement hair dryer, she opened the door. A man forced his way in, blocked the door with a chair, displayed a handgun and a badge, and demanded money, she said.
After she handed over about $2,000 in cash she’d brought from New York, he pushed her into the bathroom and demanded oral sex, the woman testified. He then pulled her back into the room, pushed her down on the bed and raped her.
Days later, Tina said, she told police she had a photo of the man who did it, which had been taken months earlier at a seafood buffet and passed around the Chinese community as a warning.
Prosecutors put the photo up on a large screen in the courtroom, showing a bearded man in a black T-shirt in front of platters of food, glancing quizzically at the camera. Who did she tell police had assaulted her? asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shih.
“I said this one,” Tina testified, indicating the man in the photo. “The fake police.”
Prosecutors say the “fake police” identified by Tina was Luis Uribe, a veteran U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent who allegedly used his badge and his gun to burst into hotel rooms and rob and rape four women, many connected with the Chinese sex industry, in a series of brazen attacks in 2022. One of the victims was allegedly assaulted by Uribe on three separate occasions.
Uribe, 45, is on trial at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on a federal indictment charging him with 10 counts of deprivation of rights under color of law, and one count of brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.
“We are here because (Uribe) was not only derelict in his duty, he violated it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shih said in opening statements Wednesday. “Actually, he perverted it. He went from investigating crimes to committing them.”
But Uribe’s attorney, Michael Clancy, told the jury that while Uribe is a weak and “flawed” man who indeed visited prostitutes, the alleged victims were liars who had sought his help with immigration issues before setting him up.
“He is the perfect mark, an immigration police officer,” Clancy said in his opening remarks, urging the jury to be wary of the alleged victims’ “soft-spoken words.”
“They are hustlers. They con men on a daily basis, and they’re gonna come in here and try to con you,” Clancy said.
Tina, 66, was the first of the alleged victims to take the witness stand. Testifying through a Mandarin interpreter, she sobbed at times, clutched her chest and held a hand over her mouth as she spoke of her ordeal.
Unlike the other women allegedly attacked by Uribe, Tina denied being involved in the sex industry. She described a series of jobs after immigrating to the U.S. in 1996, including owning a health and wellness store, a red wine exporting company, a startup bartending school and other odd jobs. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and has a daughter in the U.S. Army, Tina said.
Tina testified that after Uribe raped her, he pushed her into the hotel room shower and closed the door as he got dressed. After he left, she said, she ran out of the room with only a bathrobe on, “trying to catch him but he was gone.”
She went to the front desk for help, but her English wasn’t good, she said. “I tried to explain to them I have been robbed, call the police,” Tina testified. Later, she employed the help of a young woman, “Sophia,” who spoke better English and was staying across the hall, she said.
Near the end of her direct testimony, Tina was asked how the experience had affected her.
“Now I’m afraid of staying at any hotel,” she said. “If anyone asks me, ‘Were you robbed in Chicago?’ I couldn’t talk about it. When I think about it I start to cry. I cannot talk about it.”
On cross-examination, Clancy repeatedly questioned Tina’s memory of the alleged attack, as well as her claims to have come to Chicago to visit the city and go to casinos — not for any sex work. At various times, Tina had told federal agents that a person she referred to as “the boss,” known only as Lisa, had arranged the trip and that she knew Sophia was a sex worker, though later she denied it, Clancy pointed out in his questioning.
When told her testimony was done, Tina burst into tears in front of the jury and buried her face in a tissue. “Thank you so much,” she said through sobs. While she was being helped off the stand by prosecutors, Clancy asked U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso to excuse the jury from the room, which the judge did.
Late in the day Thursday, prosecutors called “Sophia,” a 54-year-old mother of four, who testified that after immigrating to New York in 2016 she worked as a masseuse — a job she acknowledged came with a sexual component.
In October 2022, at the behest of her boss, Lisa, she flew to Chicago to work in the area, Sophia testified. She wound up staying across the hall from Tina, whom she knew to be also involved in the sex trade.
Sophia said Lisa had sent her the photo from the seafood buffet before the trip and warned her to be on the lookout for the “fake police” officer who had been attacking women. Two days after arriving at the Days Inn, Tina reached out to her through the WeChat messaging service.
“Tina told me that she had been robbed and raped by a fake police,” said Sophia, who also testified through a translator. “She asked me for help.”
Later, Tina confirmed that the man in the buffet photo was the one who did it, Sophia told the jury. But neither of them ever called the police.
Why not? asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Rothblatt.
“Because what we do is indecent business,” Sophia testified. “So we don’t want to cause trouble by letting the police know.”
Sophia’s testimony will continue Friday.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com