CHICAGO — A federal jury has heard a series of women testify over the past week that they thought U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Luis Uribe was “the fake police,” a man posing as law enforcement who was robbing and sexually assaulting Chinese sex workers in Chicago-area hotel rooms.

In closing arguments of Uribe’s trial Wednesday, a prosecutor said, in a way, they were right.

“He kind of was a fake cop,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shih told the panel. “He wasn’t a cop, he was a rapist with a gun. He was a rapist in a police uniform.”

Uribe, 45, is on trial at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on a federal indictment charging him with deprivation of rights under color of law, and brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.

In their testimony, the four alleged victims all identified Uribe as the person who assaulted them in a series of attacks in 2022, using his gun and badge to force sex and take their money.

Uribe, however, vehemently denied ever raping or robbing anyone. He took the witness stand in his own defense on Tuesday and tried to flip the script, saying that all of the encounters were consensual and that they threatened to frame him after he refused to help with immigration issues.

After hearing some three hours of closing arguments, the jury of six men and six women began deliberating the case at about 1 p.m. Wednesday.

In his closing remarks to the jury, Uribe’s attorney, Michael Clancy. said that unlike the alleged victims, Uribe “was genuine in his testimony” and “did not lie about who he is.”

He said it’s well known that prostitutes are adept at “being able to play a man, being able to fake for a man to do her job” which “goes hand in hand…with not being truthful.”

“My argument is, they’re pretty good at it. Lying,” Clancy said. “They’re pretty good at playing a part. They do it for a living.”

He said none of the records in the case — including Uribe’s DNA being found on hotel bedsheets after one alleged assault, information from Uribe’s phone and tollway records showing his movements — corroborates any rape or robbery.

“It corroborates that he’s an immoral, horrible police officer who went and used a prostitute,” Clancy said. “And that’s not what he’s charged with.”

Ultimately, Clancy told the jury, it came down to who was believable and who had more motivation to lie.

“There’s no cameras in these rooms, there’s no other witnesses in these rooms,” Clancy said. “It’s him and the sex worker. That’s all.”

Clancy also addressed Uribe’s comment on the witness stand about getting a “good workout” when he had sex with one of the women, who goes by “Tina.” He called it a “horrible answer” that came out of frustration over all the lies being told about him in the courtroom, and that the jury should simply disregard it as irrelevant.

“He had had enough,” Clancy said. “He was frustrated by all the lies. He was frustrated by all the accusations. He was frustrated by the government’s questions of him…It’s a frustrated answer, a horrible answer. But it’s nothing you can consider. You can’t consider that he said something so crass.”

In his rebuttal, Shih says the defense theory that the victims were actually part of a “vast secret Chinese conspiracy” to frame Uribe “100 percent insane.”

Sex traffickers are interested in money and staying off of law enforcement’s radar, he says. They’re not going to involve cops in an extortion plot, Shih said.

Shih also asked the jury to compare the testimony of the victims with that of Uribe. The women, he said, were “emotional, they were raw, they were direct” in their testimony. They had the courage to come into the courtroom and face their abuser. One wept uncontrollably as she tried to point to Uribe at the defense table. Another grew angry as she pantomimed the sex acts Uribe had forced on her.

Uribe, meanwhile, “He made jokes” on the witness stand, Shih said.

“He made a rape joke. Actually, he compared the rape of Tina to a workout,” Shih said. “I think that is all you need to know about the defendant.”

Prosecutors told the jury of six men and six women in opening statements last week that Uribe, a veteran agent stationed at O’Hare International Airport, “perverted” his duty to serve and protect, going from investigating crimes to committing them.

But Uribe’s attorneys have said that while Uribe is a weak and “flawed” man who indeed visited prostitutes, the alleged victims were liars who had sought his help with immigration issues before setting him up.

Uribe’s decision to testify in his own defense is a rare roll of the dice in federal court. Under direct questioning he spoke in a rapid-fire manner and seemed rehearsed, telling the jury he was born in Cicero and “raised by two loving parents.”

Looking directly at the jury, Uribe said he’d been raised to respect women.

“My mom, she actually had the old birds and bees conversation with me,” Uribe said. “You respect women, stop when they say stop, no means no, don’t force them … I never raped anybody in my whole life. I never robbed anybody in my whole life.”

But his proclaimed esteem for women seemed shakier on cross-examination, particularly when Shih asked him about one encounter where he left work early purportedly to hit the gym, but went instead to a hotel to meet with Tina.

You never went to the gym, did you? Shih asked.

“I got a good workout in,” Uribe responded.

Shih immediately shouted back: “You’re describing the rape of Tina as a good workout?”

“It wasn’t a rape, it was consensual sex,” Uribe said.

Uribe testified he began seeing prostitutes in about 2019. In 2021, he started seeing one of the women, “Lisa,” and had paid sex with her more than 10 times. The first time they were together, his wallet fell out of his pocket and she saw his work ID, revealing he was “immigration police,” he said.

“You could see her face lit up, big old smile,” Uribe testified. “Like she hit the jackpot or something.”

Uribe said Lisa almost immediately began asking him to help her with her “immigration problem,” which included an expired work visa. He said he looked at her paperwork and gave her some information about free legal services, but did not specifically help.

“I told her ‘Don’t worry, this is Chicago you’re not gonna get deported,’” he said.

At a March 2022 lunch meeting with Lisa and her friend at a seafood buffet in Hoffman Estates, Uribe said he was offered a bribe by Lisa’s boss in China, who joined them in a video chat. In exchange for helping with immigration problems and getting more girls into the U.S., he would be paid $7,000 “plus free sex,” Uribe testified.

Prosecutors alleged the offer was actually free sex if Uribe stopped attacking women. Lisa testified on Monday that while at the meeting, one of her friends snapped a photo of Uribe that was sent around as a warning of the attacks. She also told the jury he never denied participating in the attacks, and that he cashed in on the offer almost immediately after the lunch ended.

“He followed us back to the hotel and he had sex with the other two women,” Lisa testified.

“And did he pay for it?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Rothblatt asked.

“No, it’s free,” Lisa said.

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