A former Border Patrol agent in Nogales is asking a federal judge for probation after he admitted to running over an undocumented Guatemalan man and then bragging about it.
Matthew Bowen doesn’t dispute that he hit a fleeing man with his agency vehicle.
But in a filing asking for a lighter sentence, his lawyers argue he merely tapped the man and that the victim wasn’t seriously hurt.
The former agent achieved notoriety when prosecutors found he’d sent text messages to fellow agents boasting of the attack, calling immigrants mindless savages and subhuman. Just two weeks before the attack, he wrote, “PLEASE let us take the gloves off Trump!”
Now Bowen’s lawyers say he was dismissed from a real estate job, that allegations of wrongdoing from victims and fellow agents were unsubstantiated, and that he’s a “hard-working family man.” He faces up to a year in prison after he successfully pleaded a pair of charges down to a single misdemeanor.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced Friday in Tucson.
