Two Fed Agents Closer To Felony Trials For 2020 Bisbee Bar Incident

jury box

The prosecutions of two federal law enforcement officers in connection with alleged misconduct during a visit to a Bisbee bar in 2020 are getting closer to jury trials after the investigation was delayed by several months.

Joseph T. Davis is a special agent with the U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) charged with one felony count of sexual abuse for allegedly engaging in nonconsensual sexual contact with a bartender at the Copper Queen Hotel on Dec. 4, 2020. A trial setting hearing is scheduled for Nov. 14 in Cochise County Superior Court.

Meanwhile, James Christopher McFeely is slated for an Oct. 3 pretrial conference in his case, which involves felony charges of witness tampering and obstructing a criminal investigation in connection with the same alleged sexual abuse of the bartender.

Davis, 38, was charged by the Cochise County Attorney’s Office in December 2021 and later indicted by a county grand jury. McFeely, 46, was indicted in February 2022; court records show he is a U.S. Postal Inspector.

Public records obtained by Arizona Daily Independent reveal Bisbee Officer Tim Cox was not assigned as case investigator until May 2021 even though the sexual abuse report was called in to the Bisbee Police Department around 8 p.m. on Dec. 4, 2020.

According to Cox’s report, the victim told him in May 2021 that four men were drinking together at the hotel’s bar when one of the men, whom she referred to as “hoodie guy,” put his hand up her dress and touched her in a sexual manner while she was speaking with another of the men.

Under Arizona Revised Statute 13-1404(A), a person commits sexual abuse “by intentionally or knowingly engaging in sexual contact with any person who is fifteen or more years of age without consent of that person” and is Class 5 felony when the victim is at least age 15.

After the bartender complained to her boss, McFeely -who was initially described simply as “sports coat guy”- reportedly confronted the bartender and other hotel

staff, claiming to be “law enforcement” and “officers” and that everything was okay, that had just been a matter of miscommunication.

“(The victim) states she felt the sports coat guy was trying to intimidate her,” Cox wrote in his report, adding the victim believed McFeely tried to downplay the assault. “When sports coat guy was informed the Bisbee Police had been contact he and the other individuals left the hotel property,” wrote Cox, who is now BPD’s police chief.

One of the first things Cox did after being assigned as case investigator six months after the fact was to use old security footage and credit card records to identify one of the four men. When interviewed, the man said he did not witness the incident but admitted the group left for another bar, even though they were told the police had been called because of the assault on the bartender.

Cox also received the other three men’s names -including Davis and McFeely- during that interview but continued to hit roadblocks in his investigation due in part to the men discussing the matter among themselves.

In a June 2021 phone interview with McFeely, Cox even tried to turn up the heat by announcing his plan to have the four men “returned to Bisbee for testimony because I was not getting nowhere with telephone interviews.”

However, Cox did not interview the hotel manager who was on duty in December 2020 until August 2021. The manager identified McFeely as the bar patron who “flashed a badge” and had told the manager there was no need to have called local police.

Cox’s report also reveals another witness who worked at the hotel at the time of the incident was not interviewed until Nov. 4, 2021, exactly 11 months later. The witness described seeing the bartender’s reaction to being touched, and said she might be able to identify the individuals in a photo lineup “but was not certain due to the time which has past since the incident,” Cox wrote.

The prosecutions were eventually initiated without Davis agreeing to be interviewed by Cox.

Various federal agencies have been involved in the investigation, including the U.S. Department of Justice, the Office of the Inspector General’s Tucson area office, and the U.S. Postal Service OIG. The U.S. DOJ announced McFeely’s

indictment in March and Davis’ in April, but the announcements made no reference to the fact the charges against the two stem from the same 2020 incident at the Bisbee bar.

Davis was described in the announcement as being assigned to the ATF field office in Eugene, Oregon.