A woman identified in court only as Lisa testified Monday in the federal trial of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Luis Uribe that she once offered him free sex once a week if he would stop harming other women connected to the Chinese sex industry in Chicago's northwest suburbs. Lisa, who told jurors she was born in China and is not legally present in the United States, said she delivered the offer along with a warning from bosses in China asking Uribe not to harm the group's women.
Uribe, 45, a CBP officer stationed at O'Hare International Airport, is on trial at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on 10 counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and one count of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, exposing him to up to life in prison if convicted, according to the Chicago Tribune. Prosecutors allege Uribe used his badge and gun to force his way into hotel rooms and rob and sexually assault sex workers, telling jurors he perverted his duty to serve and protect. Federal court filings previously described six separate attacks throughout 2022 against four Chinese sex workers in suburban hotel rooms in Schaumburg and Naperville, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, with one victim allegedly targeted on three separate occasions.
A Relationship That Turned Into Leverage
Lisa testified she first met Uribe in 2021 at a Red Roof Inn and was initially fond of him after he began paying her for sex, according to the Tribune's reporting. She said Uribe told her he worked in immigration police, and she later asked him for help with her own immigration issues, which he never provided. Uribe did not help Lisa with her immigration status, the Tribune reported, even as the two continued to interact.
According to the same account, Lisa said she became jealous when another woman also received Uribe's attention, and she eventually agreed to help lure Uribe to a lunch meeting. She testified that Uribe followed the group to a hotel after a seafood-buffet lunch, and she agreed to obtain a photo of him and deliver the message from bosses in China asking him to stop harming the group's women. It was in that context, she said, that she offered him free sex once a week if the attacks stopped.
Four Accusers Take the Stand
Four alleged victims testified before Lisa took the stand, per the Tribune, identifying Uribe as the man posing as police who assaulted and robbed them. One alleged victim testified that Uribe assaulted and robbed her on three separate occasions, while another testified that Uribe ran into a parking lot after friends opened a door and heard her screaming. The Tribune's account also states that Uribe ran over a driver's foot with his car and had sex with two other women without paying, and that the four accusers had difficulty recalling some details of the alleged attacks.
A North Chicago police detective, Jose Sarabia, who is related by marriage to Uribe's younger brother, testified that he recognized Uribe in a seafood-buffet photo circulated in an October 2022 bulletin issued by Schaumburg police, which stated Uribe may or may not be involved. Sarabia said he advised Uribe to contact police, but Uribe told him he would take care of the matter and instructed him not to mention anything to his wife. Sarabia described Uribe's demeanor at the time as calm as always, according to the Tribune.
Defense Says Officer Was Framed
Defense attorney Michael Clancy has argued that Uribe is a weak and flawed man who visited prostitutes but did not commit violent crimes under color of law, telling jurors the alleged victims were liars who had previously sought Uribe's help with immigration issues. In opening statements last week, Clancy revealed that prosecutors plan to introduce tollway records, Google searches, and DNA from hotel bedsheets to link Uribe to the victims, but he asserted that evidence only proves Uribe paid for sex, not that he committed assault under color of law, according to the Daily Herald. Uribe plans to testify in his own defense, per the Tribune's reporting.
During testimony, U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso ordered Lisa to answer a defense attorney's question after she said her sex work was private and unrelated to the case, the Tribune reported. Alonso is the same judge who, on September 2, denied Uribe's pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment; he ruled that while grand jury proceedings were tainted in the unrelated Broadview Six immigration protest case, prosecutor Sheri Mecklenburg was not involved in Uribe's prosecution, according to WTTW News.
Grand Jury Scrutiny and a Long Path to Trial
Pretrial filings last month revealed that during grand jury proceedings on October 9, 2024, testimony from one alleged victim was mistranslated by a Mandarin interpreter, requiring federal prosecutors to issue a revised transcript, according to the Daily Herald. Defense lawyers had cited both the mistranslation and the tainted grand jury panel in their bid to toss the indictment before trial. Uribe's case has unfolded alongside broader scrutiny of federal grand jury proceedings in Chicago, including Hoodline's coverage of the Broadview Six case, in which felony charges against six anti-ICE protesters were dismissed in May due to grand jury misconduct by a federal prosecutor.
Uribe, of Pingree Grove in Kane County, is an honorably discharged U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served four years in the military before joining Customs and Border Protection in 2009, according to Shaw Local. He has been held without bond since a December 2025 ruling denied his release. The case also raised the possibility that other non-English-speaking sex workers may have been targeted.
