United States Loretta Van Beek Strip-Searched & Molested by CBP

You seem very interested in this case. Will you tell me why?

 

I live in this area and cross over the Ambassador Bridge several times a year. I have a wife, daughter and female relatives who also travel to and from Canada thru this border entry point alone as well. I've followed this case closely because I was afraid that the same thing that Ms. Van Beek claimed happened to her might might happen to my family members. My wife was referred inside by a CBP Officer who claimed that the computer randomly selected her for further questioning. My relatives from Canada have been sent inside, due to crossing history, when entering the US. At this point none of my immediate family nor my relatives have ever experienced anything as was claimed by Ms. Van Beek. I can't say that they have not been treated rudely, this happens to me as well on both sides of the border, but I've always chalked it up to an officer having a bad day.

The reason, initially, for most of my comments here, and on other sites like this is, is that after the CBP Officers were accused of sexually molesting Ms. Van Beek it seemed that no one wanted to provide updates that Ms. Van Beek lost her case in Federal Court. It seems that a sensationalized headline was written regarding the case and everyone was expected to believe it, without the benefit of any follow up. I guess the thing that peaked my concern the most was the general opinion that the CBP Officers seemed to be found guilty until proven innocent, and even when found innocent in Federal Court they are still guilty. I watched Ms. Van Beek's video of her description of events and I've read several articles, most in fact are the same article that I initially read on the CBC website, and I just do not believe her story.

I have a friend who is a police officer and a certified instructor at a local police academy. We discussed at length the pat down procedure that is commonly taught and used in the state of Michigan, and he states this is the standard throughout the US and at the Federal level. He demonstrated to me the correct way a pat down is done and I freely admit that it was not pleasant, especially if you are in handcuffs as you feel even more vulnerable. Yes your crotch area does come into contact with the back of the hand; no fingers are inserted anywhere. He also explained how the pat down on the bra area is conducted; the nipples are not pinched. I believe that if in fact the CBP Officers involved in Ms. Van Beeks case were actually lesbians and were mistreating women that the number of molestation claims made by females would be much larger and they would have been made much sooner.

Finally, I believe that Ms. Van Beek was angered because she was denied entry into the US to go to her home in Georgia, and used the molestation claim as a source of revenge. CBP claimed they thought she was living in the US illegally, which means they believed she was spending more time in the US than she was spending in Canada; without the benefit of a legal US status. I do not believe Ms. Van Beek is a bad person, but I do get angry when someone is living in the US illegally without going through the proper channels of becoming a US citizen or getting the correct visa.

I hope you can see the reasoning for the position I've taken in this case. Unless Ms. Van Beek or a CBP Officer comes forward and admits they lied I guess we will never know 100%, beyond the shadow of a doubt, who is telling the truth. I am entitled to my own opinion, just like everyone else is entitled to theirs. You obviously know by now my opinion on this case.

 

Just a point on the legal finding. The CBP employees were not found innocent. That is a common misunderstanding. They were found not guilty. The difference is important. Evidence presented was not clear enough for a finding of guilt and while they may not have committed a crime the finding does not prove innocence. You could also say that the CBP employees did in fact commit a crime but again the evidence presented was not strong enough to clearly show guilt.

As to what actually happened none of us here will ever know. However there has been a disturbing trend of CBP employees engaged in various forms of misconduct. When a number of employees get caught up in unacceptable behaviors the benefit of doubt erodes. I am confident that if these CBP employees are dirty and got off this time something will eventually come along and trip them up.

 

Thank you for your logical, and friendly, reply. I agree with you 100% that if there are CBP Officers who get away with unacceptable behavior a few times that it will eventually catch up with them in the end. I hope I'm right in my belief that Ms. Van Beek was not totally honest. If I am wrong I hope the Department of Homeland Security prosecutes the CBP Officers involved to the fullest extent of the law.

At this time I will not be posting any further comments regarding this particular case, unless I receive new updates that are pertinent. I will post my experiences of crossing the borders during my upcoming trip if something happens of interest.

 

There are other discussions here. Jump in anywhere.

 

You Canucks just had a case, with the male BC border guard sentenced to several years in prison for sexually molesting sevearl females traveling through his border crossing at Surrey, where my kids cross going to school up there. He used his authority to have them strip their clothes and felt them up, with them bullied into compliance by the apparent carte blanche border guards have. Did he have a bad day? No, this stuff can and does happen. There needs to be a LOT more oversight and protocol changes to prevent this from EVER happening again.

I don't disagree with this. IMO, this is the first reasonable post you've posted on this issue, and I apologize for calling you a troll. We don't usually get reasonable contrarians here, just folks like TSORon.

I don't disagree with this either, but let's put this in perspective: we have dozens of millions of folks here illegally slipping across the southern border. These folks can get full civic benefits in my state, can get driver's licenses and welfare, and educational help in universities. AND work as poll workers in our elections. I guess the Van Beeks of the north are turned back because they're white and may not vote Democratic.

I continue to assert that CBP protocols here where they reject entrants from what SHOULD be treated as Schengen, namely Canadian citizens crosing into the US. Instead of being rejected at times purely on whim, not subject to judicial review, that the persons rejected be subjected to such searches of the person, involving sexual touching in private rooms where it is going to be "he said/she said" and the victim will always lose in court. And where the guards have carte blanche to do what they want and can get away with gross malfeasance.

with my answer being, so what? She was turned away and whatever she had was not a threat to the US anymore. Why this weird desire to force this person to divulge everything on or about their person. Do you walk down the street wanting to know what other people have got in their pocketses? US law enforcement are not allowed these searches unless they have probable cause. That is NOT the standard on these persons where rejection can and often IS done on the border guard's whim. As has been admitted openly in federal court.

Surely you are capable of seeing the difference in these cases. In the arrested person instance, there is probable cause as the person is being taken into custody. If the arrest is shown in court to have been effected unreasonably for grossly insufficient causes, the falsely arrested person can sue both the officer and his employer. Assuming the arrest WAS reasonable, since the person is now in the custody of the officer, nobody objects to the officer taking reasonable steps to assure his and others's safety with regard to weapons.

In the border guard case, there is no objective measure of rejection, no judicial process to appeal it afterward, and certainly no redress of whimsical rejections--in short, there is neither probable nor reasonable cause required. And on this basis you think it reasonable to subject someone to a sexual search like this? The two cases are light years apart, are they not?

You are canadian and therefore can be forgiven for ignorance of the matters I'm referring to.
Of course nobody expects the justice system to be perfect, with every verdict justly rendered. That's just not possible, given the limitations of human nature.

What I'm referring to is the systematically stacked deck that we have now in US Federal courts wrt civic freedoms when it comes to institutionalized federal behavior toward the citizens. Hence, the deliberate denial of ANY trial involving the TSA's illegal, immoral, and unConstitutional use of electronic strip searches, and sexually invasive rubdown procedures. That issue has been carefully kept away from trial because the judiciary (a) does not intend to rule against "their own side" and (b), they certainly don't want to be seen so publically and obviously rejecting point blank the obvious writing and intent of the 4th amendment. And I won't get into the blatant illegality of the NSA's spying dragnet of EVERYONE of our communications and transactions and mails. The US federal courts have not only NOT done their duty here, they have supplied grease for the guillotine used on us by supplying secret judges to the kangaroo courts used by NSA.

The stacked deck is not only in this area, it is rampant elsewhere. The 2nd (southern district of New York) Federal District, which covers Manattan and Wall Street, has been carefully populated with former legal counsel from leading financial firms. If you have contrary interests at stake in this court, good luck. Is it surprising that Eric Holder, current attorney general of the United States, declined to prosecute even ONE SINGLE PERSON for the many acts of financial fraud leading to the collapse in 2008, where known companies and individuals sold the same mortgage to MANY different buyers, fraudulently---and this is just one small example. Or is it surprising that not one single person at Bank of America and HSBC was charged with laundering hundreds of billions of drug cartel money., when it was known exactly who did this, when, and how much? And is it surprising that several years after Jon Corzine of MF Global committed outright theft of $2 billion of his customer's money, he has yet to be charged?

yes, my friend, we have a system of whores here. Not by design, but in fact.

 

Actually neither -- this was civil litigation where there is no finding of guilt. When the jury was sent into deliberations, the judge would have given them written jury instructions, which includes a checklist of points of law & torts that they have to work through to reach a final decision. In a civil case such as this the burden of proof is "preponderance of the evidence", not the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard that is used in criminal trials.

 

So a lessor degree of guilt was needed and the jury didn't think the evidence rose high enough to met that standard.

 

I understand. Actually, I'm not Canadian, I was born and raised here in the good old USA. My grandfather was Canadian and my wife and I have many Canadian relatives, thus we travel extensively into Canada. Again, I did not mean to come across as an (expletive deleted), but when I hear about the number of illegals in this country and I believe someone else is abusing the system my blood does begin to boil. I feel that the first thing that needs to be done in this country, under Obama or any other president, is to stem the tide of illegals streaming across our borders and then take action to identify and properly address the illegals already here. I know the number of illegals living here has been estimated at 11,000,000 but I believe that number to be substantially higher. Thanks for all of the responses I received to date, even though we may not see eye to eye. I guess my "illegals" speech belongs on another forum, but this is the motivation for many of my views when TSA, CBP, State or Local authorities encounter someone who tries to the enter the US without following the rules.

 

Except that they have the obstacle of immunity to overcome (a common law precept which Canada, incidentally, has wisely legislated into the trash can).

 

I understand that going after LEO's of any type in court is a stacked deck. I have made many comments against police immunity. Without hard evidence it is a losing battle.

 

Attached (PDF) are the plaintiff's claim, the jury's verdict, and the docket for Loretta van Beek's trial.

These 10-12 pages are the only substantive documents for the trial, other than mundane stuff like excusing the jury for lunch, etc.

Images of the docket are in the next post below.

In a nutshell, the only relevant part of the jury questionnaire is:

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Bizzarro, PACER downloads the docket masquerading as an HTML file and you have to find the tiny print button on their controls to get it to work correctly, at which point it appears to be printing a PDF file ...

... and sure enough, there is a real PDF file buried in all their HTML crap.

So, I'll add the PDF of the docket to the response above, and here are the screen images of the docket for the Loretta van Beek case:

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Contrary to the claims by our visiting troll, Lancer69, the other two cases that we knew about are still very much alive.

As I noted upthread, in the haggling over witness lists, they were unable to establish that Crystal Robinson & Tony Feenstra had been involved in molestations of the litigants in another case, and they were dropped from the witness list in the Loretta van Beek case.

This now seems to have been a deliberate delay on the part of the government to sabotage (successfully, it would appear) Loretta van Beek's case. However, on June 13 of this year, the lawsuit filed by Lisa Bhatt and Meera Sidhu against unknown agents was amended to name the same Toni Feenstra and Crystal Robinson as defendants, and they have since been served.

The other case was filed by Leslie Ingratta, naming two different CBP agents as her molestors: Tiffany Easley and Rosie Mackenzie.

Here are screen images of the most recent activities in both the Bhatt/Sidhu and Ingratta cases; complete PDF's (as of today) are at the bottom of the post.

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