By Steve Neavling
Border Patrol’s acting Deputy Chief Joel Martinez has decided to retire after multiple female Border Patrol employees accused him of sexual misconduct, NBC News reports.
The 31-year-old veteran of the agency is retiring just a month after he was named the second-ranking Border Patrol official.
CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility was investigating him after the employees made the allegations stemming from his time at the Laredo Sector, where he was the top official last year.
Sources close to Martinez’s departure claim that the employees accused him of making intimidating sexual remarks and pressuring them into having sex with him.
“We do not tolerate misconduct within our ranks,” a CBP spokesperson said.
“When we discover any alleged or potential misconduct, we immediately refer it for investigation and cooperate fully with any criminal or administrative investigations. This is the case whether the alleged misconduct occurs on or off duty. Federal privacy laws prohibit discussion of individual cases,” the spokesperson said. His departure comes a little more than a year after Tony Barker, the agency’s No. 3 in command, was accused of sexual misconduct directed at multiple women who worked with him.
