The Department of Homeland Security confirmed it is investigating claims from U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Newark Liberty International Airport who said senior agents sexually assaulted both male and female officers as part of extreme hazing rituals.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection stresses honor and integrity in every aspect of our mission and the overwhelming majority of CBP employees and officers perform their duties with honor and distinction, working tirelessly every day to keep our country safe,” CBP said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“We do not tolerate corruption or abuse within our ranks, and we cooperate fully with all criminal or administrative investigations of alleged misconduct by any of our personnel, whether it occurs on or off duty,” the statement continued.
DHS’ Office of the Inspector General and the CBP Office of Professional Responsibility are overseeing the probe.
Three current officers with the agency’s Passenger Enforcement Roving Team reported being assaulted by veteran officers in a private room, including being taped down to a “rape table” while others groped them. The incidents, according to the accusers, have been going on for years.
“Hazing wouldn’t do this justice. This is complete assault. They take you in a room, and your fellow officers are all watching as officers grab you,” CBP Officer Vito Degironimo told the NBC-4 New York, which reported the officers’ accounts.
The alleged abuse has mostly taken place on a conference table in a room in Terminal C where security cameras are monitored, according to the report. Clothing is not removed, but the assaulting officers grind the genital areas of victims.
“They call this table itself the ‘rape table,'” Degironimo said. “Once the lights go out, they grab you up like a gang, and they forcibly throw you on the table and one officer ended up mounting me and pretty much riding me like a horse.”
One officer, Dan Arencibia, said the group plays the “Party Boy song” from the MTV show “Jackass” during the attacks.
CBP Officer Diana Cifuentes said she escaped being assaulted on the “rape table,” only to have other officers pull a gun on her.
“There was a back-and-forth between another officer and myself,” she said. “He said, ‘You deserve to be put on the rape table.’ And that’s when he started chasing me. … [Eventually] I was held down by another officer, and one additional officer taped me with green customs tape to the chair.'”
One officer put a gun on her, she alleged.
“I was very afraid for my life,” Cifuentes said. “I took a deep breath and kept on typing like nothing was happening. I know that if I reacted, either he was going to pull the trigger, or I was going to draw the weapon myself and shoot him.”
Degironimo filed an internal complaint following months of abuse, according to the report. The trio came forward to report the incidents and hired an attorney to file a lawsuit against the agency.
“People are too scared to go anywhere because these guys are well connected,” Degironimo said. “Our immediate supervisors are best friends with these officers. The repercussions were that they removed the [rape] table. There was no punishment for the officers involved.”
“This was armed hazing. It’s an accident waiting to happen,” the attorney, Patrick Metz, told NBC-4. “These are armed federal officers assaulting other armed federal officers. It’s gang assault.”
