Former Border Patrol Agent Charged With Damaging Government Property

CONTACT: Barbara Burns
PHONE: (716) 843-5817
FAX #: (716) 551-3051

BUFFALO, N.Y.- U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr. announced today that Eduardo Flores, Jr., 50, of Amherst, NY, was charged by criminal complaint with depredation of government property.  The charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey T. Fiut, who is handling the case, stated that according to the criminal complaint, shortly before his retirement from the Border Patrol in August 2020, the defendant entered a co-worker’s cubicle space at the Border Patrol Station in Tonawanda, NY, and began to spray and pour a substance throughout the cubicle. As a result, the Customs and Border Protection Office of Professional Responsibility initiated an investigation into Flores’s activities, which included a physical inspection of the cubicle. Over a week after the incident, the cubicle continued to emanate a pungent odor resembling the smell of urine. In order to restore the cubicle to the condition it was in prior to Flores’s actions, Border Patrol hired and paid a cleaning company over $400 to clean the cubicle and its contents.

Flores is scheduled to make an initial appearance on January 19, 2021, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah J. McCarthy.

The criminal complaint is the result of an investigation by the Customs and Border Protection, Office of Professional Responsibility, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Vance Kuhner.

The fact that a defendant has been charged with a crime is merely an accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.

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