Alabama state police claim they conducted a “full and thorough” investigation into the background of Christopher Bauer when the agency hired him in 2019, evidently ignoring the fact he had been terminated by the FBI a year earlier after he had been accused of raping a colleague at knifepoint.
Last week, the 41-year-old cop was accused of raping an 11-year-old girl and is now sitting in jail on charges of sodomy and sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12.
Turns out, Bauer fabricated a letter from the FBI that claimed he was a model employee employed by the federal agency in Louisiana and had never been accused of wrongdoing. And the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency apparently did not bother to check the legitimacy of the letter which would have taken maybe a phone call or email to the FBI.
According to the Associated Press which broke the story Wednesday:
“The letter is not legitimate,” the FBI said in a statement to the AP on Wednesday. Bureau officials would not say who they believe forged the letter.
Bauer, 41, was arrested last week in Montgomery on charges including sodomy and sexual abuse of a child under 12. The AP is withholding some details of the allegations to protect the girl’s identity.
Bauer remained jailed Wednesday on $105,000 bail, and court records do not list an attorney who could comment on his behalf. An attorney who represented Bauer in challenging his ouster from the FBI did not respond to requests for comment.
The FBI declined to say whether it was asked for any information about Bauer’s suitability to be hired by the state police.
The Associated Press also obtained a restraining order filed by the alleged victim which accused Bauer of raping her for about a year, threatening to “destroy” her if she dared turned him in.
The restraining order was available via public record in Louisiana and would have come up had Alabama state police conducted a proper background investigation.
“I couldn’t see any more and felt my legs go out from under me,” the woman wrote in her application for the order. “He told me many times if I went to war with him I would lose. He told me many times he would destroy me.”
The woman told AP that Bauer sexually assaulted her so frequently her hair began to fall out.
“It was a year of torture,” she said. “He quite literally would keep me awake for days. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep, and in six months I went from 150 pounds to 92 pounds. I was physically dying from what he was doing to me.”
Little information has been made public about the 11-year-old girl he is accused of molesting. He remains incarcerated on a $105,000 bond.
