BREAKING: ICE Agent EXPOSED for Sexually Abusing Detainee
David Courvelle was 56 years old when he was hired as a contract detention officer at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana. He worked there for seven months. During that time, he sexually abused a Nicaraguan woman who was being held in federal immigration detention and had no power to stop him.
On June 26, 2026, he was sentenced to three years in federal prison.
Three years. For sexually abusing a woman in federal custody.
What He Did
According to court documents, Courvelle began what prosecutors described as a personal and romantic relationship with a female Nicaraguan detainee identified by the initials C.H., who was being held at the facility on an immigration matter. He smuggled gifts into the facility for her: food, jewelry, letters, and photographs of her daughter. He arranged for other detainees to serve as lookouts while he engaged in sexual contact with her, to avoid being detected by other staff.
In a statement to investigators conducted under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, the victim explained that she felt pressured to perform sexual acts on Courvelle while they were together.
On July 16, 2025, facility staff saw Courvelle and the detainee exiting a janitorial closet. He was transferred to another housing unit. He resigned on July 30, after learning investigators had obtained recordings of phone calls between him and the detainee. When ICE’s Office of Inspector General interviewed him in September, he initially denied the relationship before eventually admitting to it.
He pleaded guilty on December 29, 2025.
He was sentenced to three years.
This Is the Same Facility Where Multiple Women Have Filed Abuse Complaints
Courvelle’s conviction does not exist in isolation. It is the latest confirmed incident at a facility that has been the subject of serious and repeated allegations of sexual abuse, physical abuse, coerced labor, and medical neglect for years.
The South Louisiana ICE Processing Center is one of the largest ICE detention facilities in the country. It is run not by the government but by the GEO Group, a private prison corporation and ICE’s largest detention contractor. The facility houses women and detainees of various gender identities.
In September 2025, the ACLU of Louisiana, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and the National Immigration Project filed formal complaints with DHS and ICE on behalf of four detainees who described repeated sexual harassment, sexual assault, physical abuse, coerced labor at $1 per day, solitary confinement used as retaliation for filing complaints, and denial of medical care. Three of the four complainants identified as LGBTQ and said they were specifically targeted by a former assistant warden named Manuel Reyes, who allegedly orchestrated a late-night forced labor scheme and enabled repeated sexual abuse against transgender and gender-nonconforming detainees.
One woman with epilepsy who was sexually abused at the facility and placed in solitary confinement after filing a complaint said: “I begged the U.S. government to help me. I filed complaints and grievances. I told ICE officers and medical staff. But they did nothing.”
DHS called the accusations false. A “hoax.”
The Complaints Were Ignored Until They Could Not Be
Attorneys for the detainees who filed civil complaints described a system designed to bury their clients’ allegations.
“These people screamed for help,” said Sarah Decker, a senior staff attorney at RFK Human Rights. “They filed grievances. They filed complaints under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. They filed verbal complaints through the Office of the Inspector General.” The complaints, she said, were “systematically ignored” and “buried.”
“There’s a deep underbelly of abuse that we haven’t fully uncovered yet,” Decker said.
GEO Group denied the allegations, calling them “baseless” and part of a “politically motivated, radical campaign to abolish ICE.”
Courvelle’s conviction is not a campaign. It is a federal guilty plea. He admitted to it in court.
The System That Enables This
The South Louisiana ICE Processing Center is a for-profit facility. GEO Group is paid by the federal government per detainee per day. More detainees means more money. Under Trump’s second term, ICE detention has expanded dramatically, with the administration pushing to detain as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
That expansion has not come with expanded oversight. It has come with reduced accountability, gutted civil rights enforcement, and a Department of Homeland Security that dismissed detailed abuse complaints from multiple women at this exact facility as a “hoax” months before one of its own officers pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a detainee there.
The women who filed those civil complaints had no legal status. No voting rights. No political power. They filed grievances and were put in solitary confinement for it.
What the Prosecutor Said
“Those entrusted with authority over detained persons must be held to the highest standards, and violations of that trust will be prosecuted,” said U.S. Attorney Zachary Keller.
That is true. It should be true. And Courvelle’s prosecution is real accountability that matters.
But the women who filed civil complaints about this same facility months before Courvelle was caught are still waiting. The assistant warden they accused of orchestrating systematic sexual abuse of transgender detainees has not been charged. The GEO Group, which runs the facility where all of this happened, continues to hold its federal contracts.
Three years for Courvelle. No charges for anyone else. A facility still open. A contractor still getting paid.
The Bottom Line
A detention officer sexually abused a woman who was in immigration custody and had no power to refuse him. He was convicted and sentenced to three years. He deserves to be in prison.
But the facility where he worked has been the subject of abuse complaints for years. Women have described sexual assault, forced labor, retaliation, and medical neglect. They filed complaints through every official channel available to them. They were ignored. One of them was put in solitary confinement for asking for help.
The Trump administration is detaining more people than ever, in facilities run by private corporations paid by the head, with less oversight than ever.
David Courvelle is going to prison. The system that put that woman in his power is still running at full capacity.