A former U.S. Border Patrol agent indicted in 2019 on charges that he sexually assaulted several women over a seven-year period will be back in a Pima County courtroom next month to set a trial date.
Steven Charles Holmes was arrested in May 2019 after a woman he met via an online dating app told detectives with the Tucson Police Department she was sexually assaulted while on a date with Holmes. An investigation revealed other women claimed Holmes assaulted them in 2012 2015, and 2018.
Holmes, now 35, is out of custody while awaiting trial. He is slated to appear before Judge Kimberly Ortiz on June 15 to discuss when that trial should start.
At the time of his arrest, Holmes was assigned to the USBP’s Tucson Station and had been an agent for seven years. He was placed on administrative duties in 2019 pending resolution of the charges. It is unclear from court records whether Holmes is still employed by USBP.
Like Holmes, John Joseph Daly III is accused of committing several sexual assaults while employed with USBP in Arizona. Daly retired out of USBP’s Douglas Station in 2019 as a supervising agent after working 20 years with the agency.
Daly was arrested May 4 in Sierra Vista after his DNA was matched to that found at the scene of three sexual assaults reported in 1999 to 2002. One of those assaults was reported in 2001 in Bisbee where Daly was working for USBP, while the other two were reported in the Mesa-Gilbert area.
Eventually the suspect was nicknamed the East Valley Rapist when investigators tied several other assaults in eastern Maricopa County to the same man despite a lack of DNA.
Daly’s arrest came about after a Mesa police detective sent the East Valley Rapist’s DNA profile to a company which specializes in genealogy matches. But instead of identifying possible relatives of the DNA owner, the company reported a nearly 100 percent match to Daly, who lives in a subdivision south of Sierra Vista.
A multi-agency taskforce then set about surreptitiously obtaining a DNA sample from Daly, which was done by having a former USBP coworker invite Daly to lunch at local restaurant. Investigators were there waiting to seize the utensils and glasses he used in order to conduct DNA testing.
A few weeks later Daly was arrested after the new DNA sample matched the old crime scene evidence. He has been indicted in Cochise County for the Bisbee assault and is being held in jail without bail to await trial. He is also expected to be charged in multiple cases out of Maricopa County.
Investigators found a 2002 newspaper clipping about the 2001 Bisbee sexual assault while searching Daly’s home. They also found more than 270 guns.
While Daly’s prosecution is just getting started, another sexual misconduct case involving a USBP agent was finally adjudicated last month.
Jason Christopher Davis was a USBP supervising agent until his May 2018 arrest in New Mexico by special agents with Homeland Security Investigations on federal charges related to production of child pornography. He pleaded guilty in 2018 but was not formally sentenced until April 7 of this year when a judge imposed a 15-year prison term.
Many of the court documents in that case are sealed or subject to a protective order, so it is not possible to determine why it took more than two years for Davis, 48, to be sentenced after pleading guilty. However, he appears to have remained in custody throughout his case.
Davis came under scrutiny after Google detected two sexually explicit videos being shared across one of its platforms. One of the videos captured the sexual exploitation of a five-year-old girl who was coaxed by Davis to pose in an explicit manner wile he touched her. He uploaded a second video to the internet in April 2018 which caught the attention of Google and then federal authorities.
Once Davis leaves the U.S. Bureau of Prisons he must serve 20 years of supervised release and register as a sex offender.