Federal agent charged with lying about her romance with victim in immigration exploitation case

SACRAMENTO >> A federal agent in the Bay Area has been charged with lying to conceal her relationship with a victim in a large immigrant exploitation case where she served as the lead investigator, prosecutors announced Thursday.

Melissa Saurwein, 43, of Martinez, was charged with three counts of making false statements to federal investigators, a crime that carries up to five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Saurwein is not in federal custody, according to jail records.

Saurwein is an agent with Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of ICE. A federal grand jury in San Francisco returned the indictment against her.

Saurwein was the lead investigator in the prosecutor of a man named Job Torres Hernandez, who in 2019 was sentenced to eight and a half years in federal prison for a conviction of “harboring illegal aliens for commercial advantage of private financial gain,” court records show. The case centered on allegations that Torres Hernandez recruited undocumented immigrants for construction jobs, had them live in a warehouse, and exploited their status by failing to pay them. After his conviction, he was ordered to pay more than $919,000 in restitution.

The following year, a judge dismissed the convictiion at the request of federal prosecutors in the Bay Area, who cited a confidential investigation by the Inspector General, court records show.

Saurwein testified in Torres Hernandez's March 2019 trial. She said she conducted interviews with the alleged victims in the case, paid two of them a total of $2,500 for cooperation, and helped some apply for Visas to continue live in the United States.

Prosecutors haven't revealed the name of the person with whom Saurwein allegedly engaged in a romantic relationship. The Northern California U.S. Attorney's office, where Torres Hernandez was prosecuted, has recused itself from Saurwein's case and federal prosecutors in Sacramento have taken it over, records show.

Marie Ferguson, a public information officer with HSI, said in a statement that the agency's San Francisco office “takes very seriously all allegations of employee misconduct.”

“Any allegations of misconduct are investigated by the appropriate agencies, and any employee who has committed provable misconduct, will be held accountable. HSI San Francisco is fully cooperating with this investigation,” Ferguson said in an email, deferring further comment to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California.

In court filings related to Torres Hernandez's case, federal prosecutors wrote that they informed defense counsel of “information received on Sept. 1, 2020 from a victim who testified at trial” that triggered the Inspector General's investigation.