An Alabama state trooper facing child rape charges had multiple sexual misconduct allegations against him at the FBI. Despite that, he was hired by the state police due to a fake FBI letter endorsing him, The Associated Press (AP) reported Wednesday.
Christopher Bauer, 41, was charged with first-degree sodomy, sexual abuse of a child less than 12 and other sexual abuse charges in late April. After Bauer’s arrest, he resigned from the state police, according to the AP.
An Alabama state trooper arrested on charges he raped an 11-year-old girl had been kicked out of the FBI amid sexual assault allegations but was hired anyway with the apparent help of a forged letter that scrubbed his record clean, AP investigation finds. https://t.co/pYbSGLFsYb
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 5, 2021
In 2018, Bauer was fired from the FBI’s New Orleans office following allegations that he raped a co-worker at knifepoint, among other accusations, AP reported.
But the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the state police that hired Bauer, didn’t appear privy to this information, according to AP.
On the application, Bauer reportedly indicated that he was still employed by the FBI and was never forced to leave because of disciplinary action. Alabama’s state police provided the AP a copy of the fraudulent letter that endorsed Bauer as “eligible for rehire.” (RELATED: State Police Officer Arrested Over Role In Prostitution And Gambling Ring That He Allegedly Ran Out Of His Strip Club)
The letter, which also does not mention his checkered past of sexual assault allegations, was “not legitimate,” the FBI told the AP.
Lou Reiter, a former deputy chief with the Los Angeles Police Department, said it was peculiar of an agent leaving the FBI after ten years. Thus, he claimed, the state agency “obviously” didn’t do a thorough enough background check.
The accused reportedly told his FBI colleagues the acts between him and the other agent were consensual. The federal agency interviewed several female FBI employees about Bauer and said the truth about the interactions was “somewhere in the middle” of Bauer’s claims and the female co-worker’s claims, AP reported.
The FBI also found that Bauer had violated the agency’s policy by having sex in an FBI vehicle, according to AP.
A restraining order for the FBI co-worker indicated the accused had been in Louisiana’s public record for a year when he was hired as a trooper. Bauer was ordered to surrender firearms and other weapons. (RELATED: Two St. Louis Police Officers Charged With Rape And Sexual Assault of Four Women)
In her application for the order, the woman reportedly says she was “scared for her life” and that Bauer told her many times that “if I went to war with him I would lose.”
She told the AP that Bauer sexually assaulted her so frequently she began losing her hair and dropped nearly 60 pounds in six months.
“It was a year of torture,” she reportedly said. “I was physically dying from what he was doing to me.”