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Former FBI agent convicted of years of child sexual abuse, faces life imprisonment

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A court in the US state of Alabama has sentenced a former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to six years in prison for the sexual abuse of a girl, according to prosecutors.

The Montgomery County court convicted 44-year-old Christopher Bauer “of first-degree sodomy and sexual abuse of a child under the age of twelve,” Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey said in a statement Friday.

Montgomery police arrested Bauer after a report of the abuse reached the victim’s school administrators, according to Bailey’s statement. The victim reportedly confided to a friend on April 23, 2021 – when the victim was 11 – that Bauer had been abusing her since she was five years old. The friend reported it to her own mother, who then alerted school administrators. School administrators, in turn, reported it to police, who then arrested and charged Bauer, according to the statement.

Bauer was a police officer with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) at the time of the abuse, the Associated Press (AP) reported. The victim testified in tears in court, but Bauer said in court that the girl’s statement was “a lie.”

Bauer was kicked out of the FBI in New Orleans, Louisiana, over allegations of sexual misconduct, but was promoted to police officer using a forged letter purporting to come from the FBI, according to Bailey’s testimony.

The AP published an investigative report into the allegations of forgery and sexual misconduct. The AP also published a copy of the letter Bauer reportedly used when applying for the job in 2019. The letter said Bauer was “eligible for rehire.”

The FBI reportedly denied the letter, saying it was “not genuine.” (RELATED: FBI accused of diverting agents from child sex abuse cases to investigate on Jan. 6)

The AP’s investigative report states that Bauer allegedly raped an FBI colleague at knifepoint – he strangled her and abused her so often that her hair fell out.

“It was a year of torture,” the colleague is said to have said. “He literally kept me awake for days. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep and in six months my weight went from 150 pounds to 92 pounds. I was physically dying from what he was doing to me.”

However, Bauer reportedly claimed that his actions were consensual. The FBI considered the misconduct case “egregious” and found that Bauer had also had sex in an FBI vehicle, according to the AP report.

According to the AP report, FBI investigators also believed that the truth about Bauer’s treatment of female colleagues lay “somewhere in the middle.” They found Bauer guilty of violating FBI guidelines.

The restraining order the colleague allegedly obtained, which required Bauer to surrender his “firearms, weapons, swords and knives,” was public knowledge by the time Bauer joined the police force, AP reported.

“I could no longer see anything and felt as if my legs were falling away,” the woman said in her application for the order. “He often told me that I would lose if I went to war against him. He often told me that he would destroy me.”

However, ALEA reportedly told AP that it conducted a “complete and thorough” background check and that “no derogatory comments from Bauer’s former employers” were uncovered.

Bauer is an Air Force veteran and worked for the Montgomery Police Department before becoming an FBI agent in 2009, according to the AP.

Bauer is due to announce his verdict in the child sexual abuse case on August 1. According to Bailey’s statement, he faces a prison sentence of 20 years to life. The prosecution is calling for a life sentence.

Louisiana state police intend to extradite Bauer from Alabama on other child sex abuse charges outside of New Orleans, AP reported.

“No one is above the law, including our police officers,” Bailey said in the statement. “Christopher Bauer is a sex offender and has now been convicted as such. He must be taken off our streets forever.”

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